FK ULM, FKKMK UGM and WHO Hold a Workshop on Polio Cases

The Faculty of Medicine (FK) of the University of Lambung Mangkurat University (ULM) in collaboration with FKKMK UGM and WHO held a Data for Decision Making (DDM) activity. This activity was organized by the FK ULM Satellite Course led by Dian Rosadi, SKM, MPH with team members Ifa Hafifah, Skep, Nurses, MKep and Dr. Isnaini, S.Si., Apt., M.Sc. This activity consists of 2 parts, namely online activities using Moodle for 1 month starting on 1 April 2023 and offline which will be held on 15 – 16 May 2023 at the Grand Dafam Hotel Banjarbaru.

The workshop was officially opened by the Dean of FK ULM Dr.dr. Istiana, M. Kes. In this DDM activity, polio eradication cases were used as examples. This activity was attended by 16 participants consisting of 11 participants from ULM Faculty of Medicine, 2 participants from Banjarbaru Idaman Public Hospital, 2 participants from community health centers in Banjarbaru City and 1 participant from the Banjarbaru Health Service. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative started in 1983 and has been in operation for nearly 40 years. With this initiative, polio cases in the world have been successfully reduced by up to 99 percent and it is targeted to eradicate polio by 2023.

Through this long-standing global health effort, many of the lessons learned from this initiative can be adopted in other countries. Disease control programs and to improve health systems. One of the important lessons that can be learned is data for decision making. Data is very important in efforts to eradicate polio in order to plan policies, programs, activities and deal with outbreaks.

These lessons learned need to be disseminated to relevant health professionals and policy makers to adopt them to enhance other disease control programs. Furthermore, data-driven decision-making has been shown to improve health programmes, health outcomes, optimize resources and move towards precision medicine and health.