Emergency responders have a free online resource for learning about epidemics on topics such as incident management systems, pandemic and epidemic-prone diseases and more. The World Health Organization has released a platform designed to educate people world wide on the current scientific knowledge around epidemic disease. “The key is actionable knowledge,” says Dr. Sylvie Briand, Director of Infectious Hazard Management at WHO. “What we have is knowledge. For us the value of knowledge is when it is shared — and it is especially important that responders have enough knowledge to protect themselves and do good work. We had information on diseases like Plague, MERS and Ebola, we had a number of courses but they were on paper, not accessible from the field.”
The courses, first developed in the early 2000s, have been made more available due to the OpenWHO platform, launched last year with Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, specific to health emergency responders. There are four channels of learning: the Outbreak Channel, which covers the science of fighting pandemics and epidemics; the Ready for Response Channel, focusing on improving emergency response operations, the Get Social channel, which covers necessary soft skills such as risk communications, social mobilization and community engagement and the GOARN channel, containing information for Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network participants such as preparing them for emergency field work.
There are 34 courses already, and a new channel dedicated to pandemics will be coming, as well as multiple language versions. Administrators report that more than 25,000 users from 190 countries and territories have enrolled in the courses, and up to 250,000 students can access the courses at any one time.
Source:
http://www.who.int/features/2018/sharing-knowledge-online/en/
