Epidemiology in Ethiopia 200 years after John Snow's birth.

The year 2013 marks exactly 200 years since John Snow, known as the father of modern epidemiology, was born. In 19th century, epidemiologists like John Snow, concentrated almost entirely upon infectious diseases of humans measuring the burden of disease, describing pattern and attempting to understand the transmission dynamics. During the second half of the 20th century; big changes occurred so that epidemiologists in the developed world started to use systematized approaches to investigate the etiologies, conditions and to evaluate interventions through different study designs. However, the situation in the developing world is not the same as the rest of the world. Even 200 years after Snow's birth, epidemiological capacity is lowest in Africa. This article attempts to describe that Ethiopia is not exceptional. In the past few decades, there have been some attempts to build capacity in the country by launching training programs in clinical epidemiology, general epidemiology and field epidemiology. However, not only few epidemiologists are trained, but, limited funding, high-teaching burdens, poor working conditions and low salaries are among important contributors for epidemiological brain drain in Ethiopia. Thus, strengthening learning opportunities and rewarding career paths are required to increase human resource capacity and retain skilled personnel in the field of epidemiology.