Building a public health workforce in Nigeria through experiential training

This supplement describes the work of the Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program(NFELTP) (<a href="http://www.nigeria-feltp.net" target="_blank" title="Link to Nigeria FELTP website - Opens in a new window">www.nigeria-feltp.net</a>) in building an effective and skilled workforce in Nigeria through experiential training. This supplement is a demonstration of some of the results of NFELTP residents and graduates efforts in addressing current public health challenges such as disease outbreaks and surveillance gaps for infectious and non-infectious diseases. The support to the program by the Government of Nigeria and its health development partners particularly the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has enabled the program to upscale towards attaining its goal of building an adequate public health workforce through experiential training and providing epidemiological services to improve public health in Nigeria and beyond. The authors describe the processes, operations and coverage of the program and provide disease specific examples on public health response.