Summer 2000 Issue
Partnership with Brazil to Foster CDC Technical Help
CDC scientists will help strengthen public health in Brazil through a new CDC Foundation partnership with the Brazil Ministry of Health. Brazil’s National Health Foundation (FNS) - the Ministry of Health agency responsible for epidemiology, immunizations and disease control - awarded a $1.56 million contract to the CDC Foundation to foster CDC involvement in:
- developing a program to train 10 Brazilian scientists in field epidemiology each year;
- developing a program to train 50 Brazilian public health workers each year in ways to use data in decision-making; and
- providing technical assistance to Brazil in biosafety, surveillance, hospital infections, laboratory research and other areas.
In recent years, Brazil has decentralized many public health functions, including disease surveillance, by assigning them to the municipal level. To aid in this decentralization, the country received a $300 million loan from The World Bank, an amount that was matched by the FNS. The CDC Foundation program will help ensure that cities and communities are prepared to identify and respond to disease outbreaks.
Denise Garrett, a former visiting scientist in CDC’s Hospital Infections Program, traveled to Brasilia in early April to begin a two-year assignment as a CDC Foundation fellow supporting the program. She was joined by Doug Hatch, a medical officer in CDC’s Epidemiology Program Office.