Implementation of the Third Country-Focus Training in Japan

From June 8 to 28, 2025, the JICA EWARS Project (Project for Strengthening Capacity for Early Warning and Response to Infectious Diseases) conducted its third Country-Focus Training in Japan. Twelve participants, including four officers from the Ministry of Health, two from health quarantine offices, and six from provincial or district health offices in the project target provinces (Banten, East Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi), visited Tokyo, Mie, and Hiroshima Prefectures.

A key aspect of this training was comprehensive lectures combined with site visits, which effectively covered relevant stakeholders at both the national and sub-national levels across various aspects. In Tokyo, experts from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID)/Japan Institute for Health Security (JIHS) delivered lectures on infectious disease surveillance systems, laboratory networks, emergency response and operations, mass gatherings, antimicrobial resistance, and One Health. This year’s program also introduced new components, including a lecture on health quarantine and a site visit to the Haneda Airport Quarantine Office, reflecting feedback from previous participants. In Mie and Hiroshima Prefectures, participants gained practical insights into field surveillance operations and laboratory testing by visiting prefectural health offices, surveillance/information centers, public health centers, local public and private laboratories, hospitals, and a university.

Additionally, interactive workshops were held in Tokyo and Hiroshima to review Indonesia’s surveillance systems, discuss their strengths and challenges, and explore solutions based on lessons learned through the program. On the final day of the three-week training, each participant presented their action plans to strengthen surveillance capacity in their respective workplaces.

Overall, the third training was successfully completed thanks to extensive support from various stakeholders, as well as the participants’ sincere dedication. Participants expressed high satisfaction with the training, rating their achievement of the training objectives, the relevance of the curriculum, the usefulness of the knowledge and skills gained, and the level of support from coordinators, with average scores of 4.3, 4.4, 4.6, and 4.8 respectively, on a scale of one to five. Notably, the EWARS project received reports from several participants, who, immediately after returning to Indonesia, shared their experiences and action plans with colleagues and supervisors at their workplaces.

As the EWARS Project is scheduled to conclude on August 1, 2025, this will be the final training under the current program. However, the project has received ongoing requests from Indonesian participants and stakeholders in Japan for the continued implementation of similar training programs by JICA. The project team hopes that the knowledge shared and network development fostered through these three training sessions will contribute in advancing Indonesia’s infectious disease surveillance capacity and enhancing collaboration between the two countries in the future.