International Night Oral and Poster Presenters and Award Recipients

For more than 60 years, CDC has been working with partners around the globe to save lives, protect health, and ensure global health security through the prevention and control of disease, injury and disability. CDC promotes strategies that emphasize sound public health science and practice to achieve sustainable programs and measurable health impact. Through innovative programs, CDC helps ministries of health build workforce and systems capacity and improve public health on a local, regional, and national level.

Since 1980, through its support to Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETPs), CDC has helped to strengthen national and local public health systems and to address the severe worldwide shortage of skilled epidemiologists. FETPs provide training in applied epidemiology to build a pool of public health workers able to use science and data to appropriately respond to their country’s public health priorities.  FETPs also assist countries in meeting   their core capacity requirements for surveillance and response under the revised International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005).

Each year, CDC’s Division of Public Health Systems and Workforce Development partners with the Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network (TEPHINET) to co-host International Night during the Epidemic Intelligence (EIS) Conference held in Atlanta, Georgia. International Night begins with scientific poster presentations, followed by a photo contest and exhibit, and culminates with oral presentations and an awards ceremony.  All residents and graduates of field-based training programs in applied epidemiology and public health practice from around the world are invited to submit scientific abstracts. Abstracts cover investigations or projects undertaken during training and completed within the past two years. They describe outbreak investigations, implementation and evaluation of public health programs or surveillance activities, and other areas in applied epidemiology or public health practice.

EIS International Night Abstract Selection Process

All abstracts submitted for International Night undergo a peer review process designed to rank the abstracts by quality, appropriateness, and the public health importance of the epidemiologic investigation. They are reviewed by approximately 50 experienced epidemiologists who are familiar with international public health issues. These reviewers may be directors or graduates of existing FETP programs or epidemiologists from US CDC international programs. Each abstract is reviewed by three reviewers. Reviewers are randomized to the abstracts so that it is highly unlikely that any abstract will be reviewed by the same three reviewers. Reviewers complete a standardized scoresheet and may make comments which are returned to the author. To reduce subjective variability between reviewers, all raw scores are statistically standardized so that the set of scores from each reviewer will have the same mean and range as all other reviewers. The abstracts are ranked from the highest score to the lowest score according to these criteria. The top 20 abstracts are accepted for presentation. Of those 20 abstracts, the top 5 are accepted for oral presentation and the remaining 15 are selected for poster presentations. An oral presentation from the U.S. Epidemic Intelligence Service is also selected and presented on International Night.

In 2012, 237 abstracts from FETP residents and graduates in 39 countries covered a wide variety of subject matter areas, including food and waterborne diseases, vaccine preventable diseases, vector borne diseases, zoonoses, sexually transmitted infections, respiratory diseases, and non-communicable diseases. Six abstracts were selected for oral presentation and 15 for poster presentation, representing 17 different countries.

The support and encouragement given by FETP mentors to those who submitted posters and oral presentations for International Night is highly commendable. The marked improvement over the years highlights the success of CDC and TEPHINET’s partnership to support FETPs all over the world. The quality of the presentations is also evidence of CDC and TEPHINET’s efforts to develop standards of excellence in field and applied epidemiology training. We are developing future public health leaders, and all the participants are to be commended for their contributions. Special thanks are due to the FETPs and TEPHINET member programs for their efforts to maintain the quality and standards of FETPs and the tradition of International Night.

2012 Oral and Poster Presenters and Award Recipients:

2012 Oral Presentations

• James C. Houston –  Angola. Linked Testing Using Rapid HIV Test for Antenatal Care Sentinel Surveillance in Resource-Limited Settings: Evidence from Angola’s Experience in 2009.
• Yilin He - China- –  Risk Factors for Critical Disease and Death from Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease, Immunosupressants and Immunostimulants – what works? – Chongqing Municipality, China, 2011.
• Luka Ibrahim - Nigeria. Factors Associated with Interruption of Treatment among Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients in Plateau State – Nigeria, 2011.
• Shoaib Hassan – Pakistan. Cholera Outbreak at an Internally Displaced Person’s Camp in a Flood Affected District-Muzaffargarh, Pakistan- 2010.
• Julia Gago – Peru. Effect of educational intervention to prevent and control the increase overweight and obesity in schoolchildren from public elementary schools in marginal-urban district of Villa El Salvador in Lima, Peru from 2010 to 2011.
• Rubén Solano – Spain. Space-Time clusters analysis of cases of whooping cough – Barcelona, Spain, 2000-2011.

2012 William H. Foege Award Recipient

Dr. Luka Ibrahim from the Nigeria FELTP accepting the 2012 William H. Foege Award from Dr. Kevin De Cock, former CDC Director, Center for Global Health, and Dr. Dionisio Herrera Guibert, Director, Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network (TEPHINET).

The William H. Foege Award was established in honor of Dr. William H. Foege, the renowned epidemiologist and former CDC Director credited with devising the global strategy that led to the eradication of smallpox in the late 1970s. The William H. Foege Award is the highest International Night honor and is presented for best scientific oral presentation.

The recipient of the 2012 William H. Foege Award was Dr. Luka Ibrahim from the Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program (FELTP) for his presentation on Factors Associated with Interruption of Treatment among Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients in Plateau State – Nigeria, 2011

2012 Poster Presentations

• Qin Liu – China – Salmonella outbreak
• Rhossy Espinosa – El Salvador – Foodborne outbreak
• Marina Nikolaishvili – Georgia – Rabies
• Michaela Diercke – Germany – MRSA
• Dickens Onyango – Kenya – Severe Pneumonia
• Joyce Wamicwe – Kenya – Measles
• Kalysbubu Nogoibaeva – Kyrgyz Republic – Brucellosis
• Olawunmi Adeoye – Nigeria – Cholera
• Bernardo Guzman-Herrador– Norway – Shigellosis
• Ibraheem Al-Nahellah – Saudi Arabia – Measles
• Remidius Kakulu – Tanzania – Measles
• Sukhum Piriyapornpipat – Thailand – Unintentional electrocutions
• Petra Matulkova – United Kingdom – E. coli 0157
• Bernard Madzima – Zimbabwe – HIV
• Monica Muti – Zimbabwe – Typhoid

2012 Poster Presentation Award Recipient

Dr. Rhossy Espinosa from El Salvador accepting the 2012 EIS International Night Poster Presentation award from Dr. Paul Kelly, Chairman, TEPHINET Advisory Board and Dr. Dionisio Hererra, Director, TEPHINET.

The EIS International Night Poster Presentation Award is given to the poster judged to be the best among the 15 selected for presentation on International Night.

The recipient of the 2012 Poster Presentation Award was Dr. Rhossy Espinosa from El Salvador for her poster on Foodborne Outbreak Among Inmates in Six Prison Facilities — Eastern El Salvador, June 2010

To see additional presenters and award recipients, click here.