As we mark International Youth Day, OpenWHO invites you to sign up for our free course on mycetoma, available on the Neglected Tropical Diseases learning channel.

Mycetoma is a chronic, disfiguring disease usually of the foot but any part of the body can be affected. The disease commonly affects young adults, mostly males aged between 15 and 30 years in developing, tropical countries. People of low socioeconomic status and manual workers such as agriculturalists, labourers and herdsmen are the worst affected.

Mycetoma has numerous adverse medical, health and socioeconomic impacts on patients, families and their communities. Accurate data on its incidence and prevalence are not available. Treatment is often unsatisfactory in people with advanced disease and amputation may be required. Therefore, early detection and management are important to reduce morbidity and improve outcomes.

The aim of this 30-minute course is to provide information about mycetoma to increase the knowledge and skills of national and front-line health workers to address this disease. A Record of Achievement certificate will be issued to participants who receive at least 80% on the post-test. The course is currently available in English and Arabic. Sign up today!

The World Health Organization is celebrating a new milestone in online learning: 7 million enrolments in OpenWHO.org’s free public health courses!

The record-setting participation comes as health emergencies continue to affect communities across the globe, generating demand for trusted and accessible public health knowledge. OpenWHO course enrolments have surged more than 4000% percent in just over 2.5 years, increasing from 160 000 in January 2020 to 7 million in August 2022.

The OpenWHO platform hosts courses on 165 public health topics, including training to support the response to outbreaks like the COVID-19 pandemic, monkeypox, polio, cholera, Marburg virus disease and plague, as well as for ongoing events like food insecurity and the crisis in Ukraine.

Courses are available in 65 languages – most recently adding Georgian to the offering – so that communities can access life-saving public health information in their native languages, making it easier to understand. This includes the 15 most commonly spoken languages worldwide and the official languages of 44 out of 46 of the least-developed countries.

More than 3.7 million course certificates have been issued to OpenWHO learners, who have shared more than 50 000 digital badges on social media to celebrate their achievements.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for people across the world to access the trusted, science-based public health information that they need,” said Heini Utunen, acting Head of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme’s Learning and Capacity Development Unit, which manages the OpenWHO platform. “Equity is the cornerstone of our learning response to health emergencies.”

OpenWHO’s global community of learners recently shared examples of how they have benefited from the learning platform at an open webinar celebrating OpenWHO’s 5th anniversary.

“I have learned many things about the COVID-19 pandemic from courses of the OpenWHO programme,” one learner said. “It literally helps me to speak with my local community. Because I am a pharmacist, I have been asked so many questions about risk, possibilities and about medications and I have shared the knowledge that I got from professionals from these courses.”

“I would like to thank everyone who contributed to developing this wonderful idea and providing this valuable information for free,” said another OpenWHO learner.

OpenWHO: Open to all, anytime, from anywhere. Start learning today.

Business Post Nigeria highlighted OpenWHO's new free online course on noma in a recent news article.

“This course will be a useful self-learning tool for health workers to increase their capacity to prevent, identify, treat and refer noma considering both public health and human rights aspects.

“Officers in charge of noma at the national and district level can also utilize the course material to train primary care workers,” says Yuka Makino, a technical officer for oral health at the WHO Regional Office for Africa.

Noma (cancrum oris) is a serious gangrenous disease of the mouth and face, mainly affecting children aged 2 to 6 years in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite substantial knowledge gaps, it is reported to be linked with malnutrition, poor oral hygiene, immunosuppression and living in extreme poverty situations.

The aim of the course is to provide information about noma, and to increase the knowledge and skills of national and front-line health workers to help them prevent, identify and treat this disease. A Record of Achievement certificate will be available to participants who score at least 80% in the final assessment.

Given the challenges in capturing up-to-date social and behavioural data in emergencies, WHO has developed the ‘Social and Behavioural Insights COVID-19 Data Collection Tool for Africa’ (available in English, French and Portuguese).

Recently a course explaining how to use the tool was launched in English and is now available in French. The course is part of the SocialNet series supporting social science, risk communication and community engagement in response to health emergencies, with additional courses expected to launch in the coming months.

• Version française : https://openwho.org/courses/sbi-tool-fr
• English version: https://openwho.org/courses/sbi-tool

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Global Education and Training Institute (UNDRR GETI), United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and WHO have joined together to deliver a unique online training for local authorities and urban practitioners: Transitioning to Complex Risk Management and Resilient Urban Futures: Harnessing South-South Cooperation and Learning from COVID-19.

The training will be held on 23 and 30 August and 6 and 13 September 2022, for a total of 4 online sessions in English with simultaneous interpretation in Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish. The programme includes an end-of-course assessment and a post-course survey.

Register for the training before 15 August 2022 at https://virtual-expo.southsouth-galaxy.org/en/SSC-DRR-PAHO-WHO-joint-training.

More information is available at https://www.undrr.org/event/undrr-unossc-who-paho2022.

WHO has launched its introductory online course on cholera in Ukrainian on the free OpenWHO.org learning platform, responding to the ongoing risk of cholera outbreak in Ukraine.

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of contaminated water or food. It can lead to dehydration, and death in patients with severe forms of the disease. The 1-hour self-paced introductory level course is intended for personnel responsible for prevention and control of cholera and for those involved in cholera outbreaks and response.

The WHO Country Office in Ukraine has worked closely with the Learning and Capacity Development Unit in WHO headquarters on the development of OpenWHO courses in Ukraine's national language. This course is the 18th to launch on OpenWHO’s Ukraine learning channel to support the country’s preparedness for and response to public health emergencies. Additional Ukrainian courses are currently under development on a variety of topics, including rabies, health and peace, operational readiness, health emergency response and vaccine safety.

We are committed to increasing equitable access to learning. Part of this commitment includes providing learning in learners' preferred languages. We are proud to say that Ready4Response Tiers 1 and 2 – our foundational courses – are now available on OpenWHO.org in French:

• Ready4Response Niveau 1 : Contexte et principes de réponse
• Ready4Response Niveau 2 : Systèmes, structures et compétences

Ready4Response is a multi-tiered core curriculum that aims to develop consistent learning standards across the emergency response workforces at national level. It equips participants with essential competencies needed to work within public health emergency response.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted that all countries are challenged in their abilities to respond to emergencies. Having access to the right people, with the right skills and training, at the right time and location is essential to saving lives and protecting the health of people, societies and economies during an emergency.

Tier 1 provides context and principles of the all-hazards approach to emergency response, outlining the various actors involved, their roles and structural relationships. It also examines in-depth WHO's role in response, and discusses core ethics and principles all responders must follow.

Tier 2 focuses on the Incident Management System (IMS) and its core functions. It also examines core skills required to work effectively in a response team and describes the basic principles of risk management.

Both Ready4Response courses are "Continuing Professional Development" certified. Tier 1 is also available in English, Portuguese and Lao, and Tier 2 is also available in English and Lao.

Food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition continue to increase globally due to the toxic combination of drivers such as conflicts and weather extremes and the effects of climate change and economic shocks.

Food crises are also health emergencies: food shortages and factors associated with them determine an increase in the nutrition and health risks of the population affected and a consequent increase in the need for preventive and curative health care. While malnutrition increases risk of new diseases and of deterioration of existing diseases, especially among children, pregnant and lactating women (PLWs), people living with chronic diseases and disabilities, and the elderly, food insecurity also contributes to deterioration in health-seeking behaviour and increasing access barriers to health care with consequent negative impact on service coverage – especially in a context where health systems are already under-resourced and disrupted.

As the role of WHO and of the health sector in food insecurity and food crises has been often underestimated and neglected, an internal WHO strategic framework for readiness and preparedness was elaborated by a dedicated multi-departmental working group, in collaboration with the Eastern Mediterranean and African regions, to support the strengthening of WHO national capacities for a more prompt, effective and resilient health system response to food insecurity and famine.

The course "The Food Insecurity and Health Readiness and Response Strategic Framework" provides an introduction to the basic concepts of food insecurity, the impact and implications of food crises in health, health systems and programming, and the structure and content of the Strategic Framework and its 5 strategic domains (coordination and collaboration, surveillance and information, outbreak prevention and control, essential nutrition actions, health service actions) to support its use and operationalization in the framework of country-specific planning.

Health inequalities exist in every population. A health inequality refers to an observable difference in health between subgroups in a population. With the necessary data, health inequalities can be measured, compared and tracked over time.

OpenWHO has launched a new learning channel that includes training courses about the foundations of health inequality monitoring, its application to specific topics and skill building. Health inequality monitoring entails quantifying and assessing health inequalities in a defined population to inform where changes are needed to advance health equity.

Two courses are currently available on the channel:

• Inequality monitoring in HIV, tuberculosis and malaria
• Inequality monitoring in immunization

Digital technologies have proven potential to enhance health outcomes by improving medical diagnosis, data-based treatment decisions, digital therapeutics, clinical trials, self-management of care and person-centred care, as well as creating more evidence-based knowledge, skills and competence for professionals to support health care.

OpenWHO's new Digital Health and Innovation channel provides advice on how to expand the use of digital technologies and maximize the opportunities of the digital transformation of health care to enable sustainable health systems and universal health coverage, while avoiding pitfalls and managing risks.

The channel currently hosts one course on ethics and governance of artificial intelligence (AI) for health and will continue to expand its offerings in the coming months.

Adapted from the core contents of the Guidance on Ethics & Governance of Artificial Intelligence for Health, the course introduces entry-level knowledge to policymakers, AI developers and designers, and health care providers who are involved in designing, developing, using and regulating AI technology for health.

AI has enormous potential for improving health outcomes and helping countries achieve universal health coverage. However, for AI to have a beneficial impact on people’s health, ethical considerations and human rights must be placed at the centre of its design, development and use.

The course will take approximately 3.5 hours to complete, and offers both Confirmation of Participation and Record of Achievement certificates. Participants who receive a Record of Achievement can also download a digital badge for the course.

As OpenWHO celebrated 5 years of operations, the learning platform's role in providing trusted information during emergency response was highlighted on the openSAP Invites Thought Leaders podcast.

The episode featured Heini Utunen, who serves as Acting Head of the Learning and Capacity Development Unit in the WHO Health Emergencies Programme and manages the OpenWHO platform. You can listen to the podcast here.

"Our contribution to the learning in public health is that of equity," Utunen said. "We believe that it's the cornerstone for any action that we take with learning materials and learning interventions to enable as many people as possible to access and utilize the materials and make it as easy as possible for the learner to join the learning journey."

The European Union for Azerbaijan highlighted the growing popularity of the OpenWHO learning platform among Azerbaijani health workers in a recent news story.

The story reported a tenfold increase in participation over the last 6 months to 18 000 enrolments. It also included feedback from health workers who have utilized the learning platform, including Dr Ziyafat Guliyeva who completed 81 OpenWHO courses.

“OpenWHO provides lots of opportunities. I found it very useful that learning methods on disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment include not only written materials, but video clips with details, as well. I got acquainted with the new methodology on taking medications along with the modern diagnostics techniques”, says Dr Guliyeva.

Read the full story from the European Union for Azerbaijan here.

OpenWHO's Azerbaijan learning channel, which includes a course in Azerbaijani and links to additional courses in Russian and Turkish, is available here.

On 19 October 2021, WHO launched its position paper Building health systems resilience for universal health coverage and health security during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond to support countries in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. This reinforces the need for an integrated approach to building health systems resilience in the context of unprecedented public and political calls for greater resilience in health systems to tackle diverse and complex public health challenges – from acute to chronic shocks – those countries are facing in the 21st century.

To help address this, OpenWHO has launched a free course that introduces health systems resilience attributes and key requirements for enabling system resilience with an integrated approach across policymaking, planning, operational levels and in monitoring and evaluation efforts. The target audiences are policy makers, managers and other current and aspiring leaders in health, particularly those responsible for public health management at national, subnational and service delivery levels.

By the end of this course, participants will develop the knowledge and skills to apply an integrated approach to making health systems resilient to public health challenges. Participants will be awarded a Certificate of Participation by completing at least 80% of the course material, and a Certificate of Achievement by earning at least 80% of the maximum number of points from all graded assignments.

Join the course here: *An integrated approach to building health systems resilience*

Each year on 6 June, we celebrate the Russian language – one of the 6 official languages of the United Nations – on Russian Language Day.

OpenWHO currently hosts 33 courses in Russian, with additional courses in translation.

Celebrate Russian Language Day by enrolling in one of our free Russian courses today!

We are celebrating 5 years of our open learning platform! You can view our OpenWHO scrapbook and other 5th anniversary materials here.

As a reminder, please join us for a webinar on Wednesday, 1 June 2022 celebrating this exciting milestone. The free event will be held from 11:30 – 13:30 CEST and is open to anyone interested. Register for the webinar here.

WHO launched OpenWHO in June 2017 to facilitate the transfer of public health knowledge for emergencies on a massive scale in anticipation of the next pandemic. Grounded in the principles of open access and equity, courses are free, self-paced, accessible in low-bandwidth and offline formats, and available in national and local languages.

After serving responders in outbreaks from Ebola to plague, OpenWHO dramatically scaled up course production for the COVID-19 pandemic, making life-saving information from WHO experts available online at a time when lockdowns and social distancing limited our ability to physically come together to learn.

The 1 June webinar will be divided into 2 parts:

1. Behind the scenes with OpenWHO (11:30 – 12:30 CEST)
   This session will explore OpenWHO’s journey from June 2017 to today with WHO leaders who shaped the open learning platform and paved the way for its pandemic response.

2. Disseminating learning for vulnerable contexts (12:30 – 13:30 CEST)
   This session will feature partners’ experiences disseminating public health emergency learning and the impact it has made on vulnerable contexts.

We look forward to seeing you on 1 June to celebrate 5 years of OpenWHO!

Monkeypox courses available in English and French

In the wake of recent monkeypox outbreaks, learn more and be prepared to respond through OpenWHO courses on monkeypox. An introductory course about the disease, routes of transmission, clinical symptoms, and prevention and control strategies for health care personnel is available, as well as a more in-depth intermediate course designed for public health officials and health workers. The courses are available in English and French.

• Monkeypox: Introductory course for African outbreak contexts: English | French

• Monkeypox: Epidemiology, preparedness and response for African outbreak contexts: English | French

Please note that the content and scope of these courses on monkeypox have been tailored for outbreaks in African countries where the disease is endemic. The course materials were last updated in 2021 (intermediate course) and 2020 (introductory course).

You’re invited: Webinar celebrating 5 years of OpenWHO

On 1 June 2022, please join us for a webinar celebrating 5 years of WHO’s open learning platform for health emergencies, OpenWHO.org. The free event will be held from 11:30 – 13:30 CEST and is open to anyone interested.

The webinar will be divided into 2 parts:

1. Behind the scenes with OpenWHO (11:30 – 12:30 CEST) : This session will explore OpenWHO’s journey from June 2017 to today with WHO leaders who shaped the open learning platform and paved the way for its pandemic response.
2. Disseminating learning for vulnerable contexts (12:30 – 13:30 CEST): This session will feature partners’ experiences disseminating public health emergency learning and the impact it has made on vulnerable contexts.

Register for the webinar here.

New courses and languages

• Introducing Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in emergencies: This online course aims to strengthen the competencies of health sector actors working in emergencies to establish, support and scale up Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) in countries. The course is currently available in English, Polish and Ukrainian.

We are pleased to announce the following COVID-19 courses:

• COVID-19 national survey package: This course provides an overview of key considerations to support country offices to work with partners to improve national data collection.

• How systematic listening and community feedback can help us better respond to COVID-19: This training provides a description of current practices and challenges to systematically listen to communities and respond to their feedback.

New courses on other health topics:

• Ultra-low temperature vaccine management: This course is meant to provide the background and context for the ultra-cold chain management for emergency Ebola vaccination and certain COVID-19 vaccines.
• Social prescribing: This course helps introduce social prescribing at the community level, with a special focus on the Western Pacific region.
• Healthy and safe telework: This online training provides guidance to teleworkers and their managers on protecting and promoting health and wellbeing while teleworking.
• Caregiver Skills Training for Families of Children with Developmental Delays or Disabilities: This course is for caregivers of children ages 2 to 9 years with developmental delays or disabilities, especially in the domains of communication and social interaction.
• WHO Policy Guidance on Integrated Antimicrobial Stewardship Activities: This training provides learners with understanding on the need for antimicrobial stewardship (AMS), insights into what AMS entails, how it can best be implemented and what Assessment Tools are available to enable a successful AMS implementation.
• Antimicrobial stewardship programmes in health-care facilities in low- and middle-income countries: a WHO practical toolkit: This course focuses on providing practical guidance in implementing AMS programmes within local contexts and explores the Assessment Tools that are available to enable a successful AMS implementation.

New translations

The following 12 translations have been launched this month:

• MHPSS in emergencies in Polish and Ukrainian
• Rabies in French and Russian
• COVID-19 vaccine introduction and deployment costing in Macedonian
• Infection Prevention and Control leadership in Macedonian
• Standard Operating Procedures for emergencies in Arabic
• Waste management in Macedonian
• Environmental cleaning in Macedonian
• Antimicrobial stewardship in Macedonian
• Engaging the private sector to deliver COVID-19 tools in French and Russian

Updates to course content

The following course materials have been revised to reflect updates to the technical content and are now up to date:

• COVID-19 vaccine-specific resources in English. Videos and resources for the COVAXIN and Covovax and Nuvaxovid vaccines have been made available.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has 46 courses on COVID-19, with a total of 155 courses spread across 64 languages. All courses for COVID-19 can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language. You can also access our catalogues which show all courses and languages available for COVID-19 and other health topics here.

NoExcuse #StopSEAH webinar series on OpenWHO

WHO is committed to capacitating our workforce, partners and collaborators to prevent, protect from and respond effectively and quickly to any allegation of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (SEAH). A new session has been recently added to OpenWHO on positive masculinity to ignite cultural change for the prevention and response to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here. The newsletter highlights are also available in Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

Human monkeypox is a rare emerging zoonotic disease of concern since it was first identified in humans in the seventies. It is one of the first epidemic-prone disease learning resources made available on the OpenWHO platform, in 2018.

Working collaboratively with WHO expert teams, the introductory course was launched and updated on OpenWHO to provide a general overview of the disease, describing its emergence, routes of transmission, symptomatology, and prevention and control strategies for health care personnel in charge of disease prevention and control and for the general public.

A more in-depth intermediate course is also available, designed for public health officials and health workers, for an advanced understanding of its epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment, as well as effective strategies for prevention, investigation and response to outbreaks.

• Monkeypox: Introductory course for African outbreak contexts: English | Français
• Monkeypox: Epidemiology, preparedness and response for African outbreak contexts: English | Français

Please note that the content and scope of these courses on monkeypox have been tailored for outbreaks in African countries where the disease is endemic. The course materials were last updated in 2021 (intermediate course) and 2020 (introductory course).

On 1 June 2022, please join us for a webinar celebrating 5 years of WHO’s open learning platform for health emergencies, OpenWHO.org. The free event will be held from 11:30 – 13:30 CEST and is open to anyone interested.

Register for the webinar here.

WHO launched OpenWHO in June 2017 to facilitate the transfer of public health knowledge for emergencies on a massive scale in anticipation of the next pandemic. Grounded in the principles of open access and equity, courses are free, self-paced, accessible in low-bandwidth and offline formats, and available in national and local languages.

After serving responders in outbreaks from Ebola to plague, OpenWHO dramatically scaled up course production for the COVID-19 pandemic, making life-saving information from WHO experts available online at a time when lockdowns and social distancing limited our ability to physically come together to learn.

The 1 June webinar will be divided into 2 parts:

1. Behind the scenes with OpenWHO (11:30 – 12:30 CEST)
   This session will explore OpenWHO’s journey from June 2017 to today with WHO leaders who shaped the open learning platform and paved the way for its pandemic response.

2. Disseminating learning for vulnerable contexts (12:30 – 13:30 CEST)
   This session will feature partners’ experiences disseminating public health emergency learning and the impact it has made on vulnerable contexts.

We look forward to seeing you on 1 June to celebrate 5 years of OpenWHO!

As we mark Mental Health Awareness Month, we are pleased to offer a new WHO online course in English, Ukrainian and Polish that introduces participants to Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in emergencies.

This free course presents how to apply existing practical, evidence-based, scalable tools and practice-led approaches for the successful implementation of projects to strengthen Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) in emergencies – all based on WHO, Inter-Agency Standing Committee and Sphere Handbook content. The online orientation is designed to strengthen the competencies of health sector actors working in emergencies to establish, support and scale-up MHPSS in countries.

The primary audience of this course is humanitarian health sector staff seeking to integrate MHPSS into their programmes. This includes WHO Health Emergencies Programme staff and humanitarian actors from United Nations agencies, NGOs and governments. In addition, professional officers working in areas such as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), reproductive health and HIV in country offices, humanitarian organizations and Ministries of Health will benefit from participating in at least some of the course modules.

The 7-hour course can be taken wherever, whenever you want on OpenWHO.org, all at once or in several sittings. You have the opportunity to earn a certificate for test-based achievement, as well as a digital badge to share your achievement with your networks. The course will be available later in additional languages.

You can access the MHPSS training here.

Help us spread the word: OpenWHO is hosting a virtual booth as part of the Global South-South Development (GSSD) Expo 2022!

Co-hosted by the Government of Thailand and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the theme of this year's expo is “Advancing South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Sustainable COVID-19 Recovery: Towards a Smart and Resilient Future”. The annual event is organized by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) to showcase evidence-based development solutions in collaboration with United Nations agencies and other partners.

Our virtual booth – which is now live – showcases OpenWHO.org and how we leave no one behind by promoting health literacy and equity through the massive online delivery of life-saving health knowledge. If you visit from 9-13 May, you will have the opportunity to chat with OpenWHO team members according to the posted schedule.

To access our virtual booth, live chat and the entire virtual exhibition, please follow the steps below:

• Step 1: Go to the main GSSD Expo 2022 website.

• Step 2: Register using the "General Visitors Registration" button or the direct link here.

• Step 3: Once you have registered, click “Login” to enter the platform.

• Step 4: Once inside the platform, you will see the main lobby of the virtual GSSD Expo. Click "Exhibition" in the lobby or the "Exhibit Hall 1" tab in the upper menu, and OpenWHO’s booth will be the first to appear.

Hope to see you and your colleagues there!

The Portuguese language is the most widely spoken language in the southern hemisphere, with 265 million speakers worldwide according to UNESCO. Given its geographical reach and high use in vulnerable communities, the OpenWHO platform offers 28 courses in Portuguese.

Join us in celebrating Portuguese Language Day on 5 May by enrolling in one of our free multilingual courses for managing public health emergencies. Open to all, anytime, from anywhere.

Certificates for the Ready4Response course series now highlight the courses' Continuing Professional Development (CPD) accreditation and include a QR code verifying that learners successfully passed each course.

The two Ready4Response courses – Tier 1 and Tier 2 – received CPD accreditation in January, certifying that their content and structure have been independently assessed and approved for continuing personal and professional development purposes. They were the first OpenWHO courses to receive this recognition, which is now noted on the course certificates.

A QR code on each certificate also enables employers and other interested parties to verify that an individual successfully completed and passed all course exercises with the click of a button.

As WHO’s core curriculum for health emergency response, the Ready4Response course series was created to train health workers and responders currently working, or interested in working, in national health emergency response. With a multi-tiered core curriculum, the series aims to develop consistent learning standards across the emergency response workforces at national level, equipping participants with the essential competencies needed to work in public health emergency response.

Everyone deserves to work in a place that is healthy and safe. Each year on 28 April, we celebrate World Day for Safety and Health at Work to raise awareness of this right and the steps we can take to ensure it is a reality for workers across the globe.

Training is key. Nearly half of the world’s population works. Providing workers with the latest occupational health and safety knowledge can help protect them from work-related injuries, diseases and deaths. This is especially important during public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Workplaces have played an important role in both the spread and mitigation of COVID-19. Health workers of all kinds have been particularly affected by the pandemic. Not only have they been sick, they have suffered adverse effects of prolonged use of personal protective equipment, fatigue and mental health problems, violence and harassment and exposure to hazardous disinfectants.

The pandemic has stimulated many work settings around the world to expand telework and hybrid work arrangements. All these can impact the health, safety and wellbeing of workers.

So the World Health Organization (WHO) is offering free online courses on these topics on its OpenWHO.org learning platform. Materials are available in multilingual and low-bandwidth formats to maximize access.

WHO has also collaborated with partners like the International Labour Organization (ILO) on additional training materials to protect health workers and responders and prepare workplaces for future health emergencies. To access these learning resources, please visit the links below.

• COVID-19 and work: Staying healthy and safe at work during the COVID-19 pandemic (OpenWHO): This course is intended to guide workers and their representatives, business leaders, managers, as well as occupational health and safety professionals in protecting their workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Healthy and safe telework (OpenWHO): This course provides guidance to teleworkers and their managers on protecting and promoting health and wellbeing while teleworking.

• Occupational health and safety for health workers in the context of COVID-19 (OpenWHO): All health workers require knowledge and skills to protect themselves and others from the occupational risks they encounter, so that they can work safely and effectively. This course consists of five sections in response to these needs.

• All-Hazard Rapid Response Teams Training Package (WHO Health Security Learning Platform): The all-hazard Rapid Response Teams Training Package is a structured comprehensive collection of training resources and tools enabling relevant training institutions to organize, run and evaluate face-to-face training for Rapid Response Teams tailored to country specific needs.

• Occupational safety and health in public health emergencies: a manual for protecting health workers and responders (WHO/ILO publication): This manual provides an overview of the main occupational safety and health risks faced by emergency responders during disease outbreaks and other emergencies, such as natural disasters, chemical incidents, radiological emergencies and emergencies involving conflicts. The intent is to assist organizations and workplaces to better prepare and respond to these events.

• HealthWISE - Work Improvement in Health Services (ILO/WHO publication): HealthWISE is a practical, participatory quality improvement tool for health facilities. The HealthWISE package consists of an Action Manual and a Trainers' Guide to combine action and learning. Topics include occupational safety and health, personnel management and environmental health.

Empowering health workers, decision-makers and the public with trusted knowledge about immunization is critical to protecting people from vaccine-preventable diseases. Health professionals need this knowledge to safely and effectively administer vaccines, leaders rely on it to inform health policy, and individuals depend on it to make decisions about their own health and the health of their families.

That is why the World Health Organization has developed a suite of online courses addressing key vaccination topics on its free learning platform OpenWHO.org. Courses are available in national and local languages and can be taken at each learner’s own pace, all at once or across several sittings, to enable access for as many people as possible.

As we celebrate World Immunization Week from 24-30 April, we welcome you to enroll in the following OpenWHO courses and share them with your networks. Vaccines save lives — and so can knowledge.

COVID-19 vaccine courses

• COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers: All health workers involved in implementation of COVID-19 vaccination need to have adequate knowledge and skills in order to ensure safe and efficient COVID-19 vaccine administration. The COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers package is developed for frontline health workers in countries. The package, developed in collaboration with UNICEF, consists of 6 modules, which include video lectures, quizzes, job aids, interactive exercises and downloadable presentations with the available information.

• Orientation to national deployment and vaccination planning for COVID-19 vaccines: The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator’s Country Readiness and Delivery workstream has released guidance on developing a national deployment and vaccination plan (NDVP) for COVID-19 vaccines. This course is intended to help national and sub-national focal points in countries develop the NDVP and prepare for COVID-19 vaccine introduction.

• COVID-19 vaccine-specific resources: Health workers involved in deployment and implementation of COVID-19 vaccination require vaccine-specific knowledge to ensure safe and efficient vaccine delivery. This training provides key information about COVID-19 vaccines through short instructional videos, vaccine explainers, job aids, topic briefings and downloadable presentations.

• Learning how to use the COVID-19 Vaccine Introduction and deployment Costing (CVIC) tool: The CVIC tool is the WHO-UNICEF tool designed to assist countries in the process of planning and costing COVID-19 vaccination. The aim of this course is to demonstrate the use of the CVIC tool. The course is targeting national programme managers and personnel who have been involved in the costing, budgeting or financing processes of COVID-19 vaccine delivery in a country.

• Discover your leadership moment: The pandemic has revealed deep structural and systemic issues in our society. From equity issues to people's loss of trust in institutions evidenced by vaccine hesitancy, the need for a different approach to leading consequential change is evident. How do we mobilize people to tackle complexity, while holding them through uncertainty towards a better future? This course aims to start you on your leadership journey to do just that!

Additional immunization topics

• Vaccine safety basics: This course introduces participants to the foundations of vaccine pharmacovigilance. The aim of this course is to provide healthcare professionals whose work involve vaccine safety issues, with essential knowledge about vaccines and their safety aspects. These professionals can include nurses, midwives, community health workers, as well as pharmacists, medical doctors and immunization programme or vaccine safety communication officers.

• Inequality monitoring in immunization: Ensuring universal access to immunization promotes better population health and improved outcomes across diverse aspects of development. Unfortunately, however, the benefits of vaccines are spread unevenly. Monitoring inequality in vaccination coverage is a way to identify where inequalities exist and where disadvantaged subgroups stand in terms of access to and utilization of health services. This course introduces the general steps of inequality monitoring in immunization, which should be an integral part of a country’s immunization programme.

• Influenza prevention and control: This course focuses on tools that can be used to prevent and control influenza. These tools include: seasonal influenza vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.

• Recognizing and managing anaphylaxis: Anaphylaxis is a severe, immediate allergic reaction. Symptoms that can be life-threatening can occur within seconds to minutes, rarely hours, after contact with the allergenic substance including medicines and vaccines. This course provides practical guidance to frontline health care providers and also vaccinators with key information on its identification, differentiating it from other clinical conditions such as fainting and other stress-related responses. It also provides step-by-step guidance on the case management at the site of the event and the process of referral.

• Flutool Plus - using the WHO Seasonal Influenza Immunisation Costing Tool: Flutool Plus is the WHO tool designed to help lower- and middle-income countries in the process of costing of seasonal influenza immunisation programmes. The aim of this course is to promote the dissemination and use of Flutool Plus. The course is meant for national programme managers, who are responsible for mobilizing resources to set up sustainable immunisation programmes for seasonal influenza.

• Pandemic influenza vaccines: National deployment and vaccination plans: National deployment and vaccination plans for pandemic influenza vaccines are national tools which ensure that during a pandemic, processes and structures are functional so that vaccines are rapidly deployed and administered to target populations. The existence of a national deployment and vaccination plans for pandemic influenza vaccines is also a pre-requisite in the request process to access vaccines from WHO secured stockpiles. The learning package consists of 10 modules, which include video lectures and downloadable presentations that have been updated with the latest information and developments to help countries develop or revise their national deployment and vaccination plans.

Click here to access OpenWHO courses in additional languages, as well as courses addressing related public health topics, including introductory courses on 28 diseases.

English and Spanish are the most popular languages for online learning on the OpenWHO platform, with 74% of enrolments in English language courses and 14% in Spanish language courses.

Join us in celebrating English Language Day and Spanish Language Day on 23 April by enrolling in one of our free multilingual courses for managing public health emergencies. Open to all, anytime, from anywhere.

20 April is Chinese Language Day! OpenWHO.org hosts 13 free online courses in Chinese on key public health topics, including COVID-19 vaccination, hand hygiene, risk communication and more. These Chinese language courses have more than 112 000 enrolments and continue to grow.

Starting learning in Chinese on OpenWHO today!

Each year on 7 April we celebrate World Health Day, marking the anniversary of the founding of WHO in 1948.

In the midst of a pandemic, a polluted planet, and increasing diseases like cancer, asthma and heart disease, WHO is focusing global attention this World Health Day 2022 on urgent actions needed to keep humans and the planet healthy and foster a movement to create societies focused on well-being.

Celebrate World Health Day by joining one of OpenWHO's 148 free online courses on key public health topics, including the COVID-19 pandemic and additional topics to contribute to a #HealthierTomorrow, from medical waste management to tobacco product regulation.

New courses and languages

New courses launched in March

We are pleased to announce the following courses that were recently made available:

• COVID-19 respiratory equipment: This course teaches how to choose the right equipment for your facility, how to set up new respiratory equipment, how to clinically use respiratory equipment, how to maintain equipment, including troubleshooting, repairs and infection prevention and control, and how to decommission equipment.
• Vaccine Safety Basics: The aim of this course is to provide healthcare professionals whose work involve vaccine safety issues, with essential knowledge about vaccines and their safety aspects.
• Measles outbreak training: This course provides the essential preparedness, detection, investigation, response and recovery skills required to contain a measles outbreak.
• Safety in administering medicines for neglected tropical diseases: This course provides practical tools, training modules and job aids to further improve the planning, preparation and monitoring of safe administration of NTD medicines.
• Surgical site infections: This course will cover global surgical site infections (SSI) burden, risk factors and prevention measures you can take to reduce SSI.

Join OpenWHO in the fight against TB

Though TB is a preventable and curable disease, it remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers. Each day, over 4 100 people lose their lives to TB, and close to 28 000 people fall ill. Progress has been made globally. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has put these gains at risk.

Learn more on how to fight TB through the courses available on our End TB channel: 1) Tuberculosis preventive treatment; 2) Rapid diagnostics for tuberculosis detection; and 3) Drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment.

New translations

The following 17 translations have been launched this month:

• Simulation exercise management in Ukrainian
• Long-term care facilities in Ukrainian
• Public health emergency operations centre in Ukrainian
• COVID-19 vaccine-specific resources in Ukrainian
• Engaging the private sector in Arabic, Spanish, and Farsi
• Clinical management: General considerations in Russian
• Clinical management: Mild, mod, and severe disease in Kazakh
• COVID-19 vaccination training for healthworkers in Sgaw Karen and Shan
• Injection safety in Macedonian
• Basic microbiology in Macedonian
• Infection prevention and control (IPC) core components in Macedonian
• SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid diagnostic testing in Russian
• Decontamination in Macedonian
• Oral Health in Macedonian

Updates to course content:

The following course materials have been revised to reflect updates to the technical content and are now up to date:

• IPC for COVID-19 in English. All other languages are currently being updated.
• COVID-19 vaccine-specific resources in English. Videos and resources for the Moderna and Janssen vaccine have been updated and a new video about the Sinovac/Sinopharm vaccine has been made available.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has 44 courses on COVID-19 and 100 courses on other key health topics, spread across 64 languages. All courses for COVID-19 can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language. You can also access our catalogues which show all courses and languages available for COVID-19 and other health topics here.

#NoExcuse #StopSEAH webinar series on OpenWHO

WHO is committed to capacitating our workforce, partners and collaborators to prevent, protect from and respond effectively and quickly to any allegation of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (SEAH).

Visit our dedicated page on OpenWHO here which will be regularly updated with video resources addressing this topic. In the latest video that was added to the repository, you will hear from experts on the progress and challenges that humanitarian and emergency response agencies face in combatting SEAH.

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here. The newsletter highlights are also available in Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world’s top infectious killers. Urgent and intensified action is required by countries, partners and civil society to ramp up the TB response to save the lives of millions affected by TB each year.

The End TB Channel brings together courses designed to build strategic and operational knowledge. It provides critical training on essential skills to facilitate the implementation of WHO’s End TB Strategy based on sound ethics principles and due protection of human rights. Through this interactive platform, you will learn about the latest WHO TB guidelines on TB diagnosis, prevention, treatment and care, and what practical steps can be taken to ensure equitable access to quality and timely care for those most in need.

The channel currently hosts courses on tuberculosis preventive treatment, rapid diagnostics for tuberculosis detection and drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment. As new WHO guidelines and operational guidance become available, new resources will be added and existing courses updated to enhance learning.

It’s French Language Day. French is the official language of 29 countries, and OpenWHO hosts 56 French language courses. More French speakers have access to life-saving information to improve health emergency response. Join a free online course in French today!

During the pandemic, the proportion of women learning on OpenWHO has grown from 40% to 52%. More women have now free access to life-saving knowledge! Share WHO's tweet to help spread the word.

On International Women's Day 2022, join us in celebrating women in health care & education around the globe!

During health emergencies, governments need to mobilize all resources – both public and private – to accelerate the implementation of national response efforts. At the same time, they are called to ensure the private health sector’s actions are aligned to core principles of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and are directed towards the achievement of national health goals.

A new OpenWHO course defines key concepts and presents a range of tools and proven approaches to enable Ministries of Health to harness private sector capacity to achieve key policy goals, ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 tools while advancing Health for All.

The course has been designed to support countries’ response to COVID-19 and will be equally relevant with regards to the engagement of the private sector for all the health objectives needed to ensure the achievement of Health for All.

The target audience includes Ministries of Health, policymakers and programme managers, WHO staff at regional and country levels, and global health practitioners and researchers supporting COVID-19 efforts in countries.

New courses and languages

New courses launched

We are pleased to announce the following COVID-19 courses:

• Key considerations for SARS-CoV-2 antigen RDT implementation: This course covers the main elements that must be considered before, during and after the implementation of antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDTs) in order to ensure effective implementation and greater public health benefits.

• Engaging the private sector to deliver COVID-19 tools and achieve Health for All: This training focuses on the urgent need to engage the private health sector to ensure the efficient and equitable delivery of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines needed at the country level to effectively tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

New courses on other health topics

• SocialNet: Empowering communities before, during, and after an infectious disease outbreak: The aim of this course is to provide an overview of operational concepts in relation to community engagement, risk communication, and the application of social science interventions.
• Inequality monitoring in immunization: This course examines the five general steps of inequality monitoring in the context of immunization programmes. The target audience is primarily monitoring and evaluation officers for immunization and people who have basic knowledge and experience working with immunization data.
• Catheter-associated urinary tract infections: In this course, you will learn about catheter-associated urinary tract infections, incidence, causes, risks, and proper indications for using a urinary catheter.
• Tropical dermatology: This course provides an overview of skin diseases seen in the tropics with emphasis on diagnoses that are common or of medical/public health importance.
• Leprosy: training of health workers on skin-NTDs: The course addresses the epidemiology of leprosy, suspect, and referral, diagnosis and treatment, lepra reactions, prevention of disabilities and public health interventions.
• Visceral leishmaniasis in East Africa: This course aims at providing health workers with the necessary knowledge to understand the epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, surveillance and outbreak investigation of this important disease in East Africa.
• Supply chain management of NTD health products for NTD programmes: The course explains the end-to-end process from planning and submitting donated drug requests through to waste management of expired and unserviceable stock and reverse logistics of unused tablets.
• Training of health workers at national and sub-national levels on Post-Kala-Azar Dermal Leishmaniasis (PKDL): This course aims at providing health workers with the necessary knowledge to understand the epidemiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance of this important disease.
• Yaws: Training of health workers at national and districts levels on skin-NTDs: This online training aims at providing health workers with the basic knowledge to understand the epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, impact, eradication strategy and reporting of yaws.

New translations

The following 7 translations have been launched this month:

• Management and Facilitation of an After-Action Review (AAR) in Ukrainian
• Environmental cleaning and disinfection in Armenian
• COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers in Burmese
• Management and Facilitation of a Country COVID-19 Intra-Action Review (IAR) in Ukrainian
• Introduction to Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) in Macedonian
• Ready for Response Tier 1 in Lao
• Ready for Response Tier 2 in Lao

Updates to course content

The following course materials have been revised to reflect updates to the technical content and are now up to date:

• IPC for COVID-19 in English. All other languages are currently being updated.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has 42 courses on COVID-19 and 84 courses on other key health topics, spread across 62 languages. All courses for COVID-19 can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language. You can also access our catalogues which show all courses and languages available for COVID-19 and other health topics here.

Neglected tropical diseases: WHO launches survey to expand its offer of online training courses

To further expand its offer of online courses, WHO’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases is launching a virtual survey to assess current gaps, needs and preferences in the offer of virtual tools for capacity strengthening. The survey includes 23 questions and is available in the UN languages and Portuguese. To access the survey, please click on your preferable language: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Currently, the OpenWHO platform hosts a channel dedicated to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) with multilingual courses available, with several additional courses coming soon, tackling disease-specific or cross-cutting subjects.

Ready4Response Tiers 1 and 2 courses are now CPD Accredited!

OpenWHO is continuously committed to delivering high-quality training, supporting your professional development and ensuring credibility and high industry standards. The Ready for Response Tier 1 and Tier 2 courses have been formally accredited for Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

Ready4Response is a multi-tiered core curriculum that aims to develop consistent learning standards across the emergency response workforces at national level. It equips participants with essential competencies needed to work within public health emergency response.

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here. The newsletter highlights are also available in Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

As we celebrate World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day on 30 January, the World Health Organization is shining a light on these devastating yet overlooked diseases by expanding the free online learning opportunities available on OpenWHO.org.

OpenWHO is launching 5 new online courses on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), for a total of 12 NTD courses hosted on WHO’s open-access learning platform. All courses are available on the NTD learning channel, which was established during the COVID-19 pandemic to enable continued training activities in the face of serious disruptions to the implementation of NTD programmes and on-site courses.

NTDs affect more than 1 billion people, mainly in the world’s poorest regions, where water safety, sanitation and access to health care are substandard. Some are associated with disabilities, deformities and social exclusion, while others are fatal without timely treatment.

NTDs are often ignored or poorly known and therefore become devastating for affected individuals and their communities. They are almost absent from the global health agenda, enjoy little funding, and perpetuate a cycle of poor educational outcomes and limited professional opportunities.

The 5 new OpenWHO courses address leprosy, tropical dermatology, supply chain management of NTD health products, visceral leishmaniasis in East Africa and post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis. They join existing courses on NTDs in the context of COVID-19, rabies and One Health, and 5 skin NTDs (mycetoma, podoconiosis, scabies, tungiasis and yaws), which together have 25 000 course enrolments.

The NTD courses are most popular among students, which make up more than one-third of total enrolments, as well as health care professionals (28%) and national ministries (8%). The vast majority of learners are younger than age 40 (84%), with the largest proportion of learners falling in the 20-29 age bracket (45%).

Additional courses are being developed to further expand the offering of online training resources dedicated to NTDs and support implementation of Ending the neglect to attain the Sustainable Development Goals: a road map for neglected tropical diseases 2021−2030. The road map sets global targets and milestones to prevent, control, eliminate or eradicate 20 diseases and disease groups, as well as overarching and cross-cutting targets aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

To shape the production of future courses, WHO’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases is launching a virtual survey to assess current gaps, needs and preferences in the offer of virtual tools for capacity strengthening. The survey includes 23 questions and is available in 7 languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

The NTD courses are also being translated for broader reach, with some courses already available in Arabic, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. Overall, OpenWHO hosts free online courses on 131 different topics, including 40 for COVID-19, with courses in 62 national and local languages and more than 6.2 million course enrolments.

You can learn more about NTDs and World NTD Day here.

The 26th of January marks 2 years since WHO launched its first course on OpenWHO.org introducing learners across the globe to the then novel coronavirus. That course, which has been updated 13 times to reflect the latest evidence, is now available in 45 national and local languages and has surpassed 1 million enrolments.

Overall, the OpenWHO platform hosts 6.2 million enrolments across courses on 131 topics, including 40 courses for the COVID-19 response. To address the evolving learning needs, OpenWHO has focused on key thematic areas to shape its pandemic production strategy:

• In 2020, the core focus was on providing information for mass audiences and health workers so they could protect themselves and others, including basic information about COVID-19 and infection prevention and control.
• In 2021, OpenWHO prioritized learning support for the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, providing essential information for health workers and national planning.
• This year, OpenWHO will work to expand support to countries by providing localized learning based on WHO guidelines and developing additional channels for country-originated learning content.

At the centre of this work, OpenWHO continuously seeks to advance equity in the pandemic learning response.

“Everyone deserves access to knowledge to protect their health and the health of their loved ones,” said Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme. “Providing open-access online learning is an integral part of capacitating countries and communities to prepare for and respond effectively to health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Today is International Day of Education! OpenWHO is advancing equity in education with free, self-paced, accessible, multilingual online courses on a variety of public health topics. Celebrate #EducationDay with OpenWHO by enrolling in a new course today.

The WHO Health Emergencies Programme is excited to announce that the OpenWHO Ready4Response course series has received “Continuing Professional Development” (CPD) accreditation, becoming the first courses on OpenWHO.org to receive this recognition.

CPD accreditation certifies that both the content and structure of Ready4Response Tier 1: Response context and principles and Tier 2: Systems, structures and skills have been independently assessed and approved for continuing personal and professional development purposes. The courses were developed by the Learning and Capacity Development Unit and are undergoing translation for additional reach.

As WHO’s core curriculum for health emergency response, the Ready4Response course series was created to train health workers and responders currently working, or interested in working, in national health emergency response. With a multi-tiered core curriculum, the series aims to develop consistent learning standards across the emergency response workforces at national level, equipping participants with the essential competencies needed to work in public health emergency response.

Achieving this accreditation continues OpenWHO’s goal of providing the highest quality of learning content for global learners and improving health emergency response in all contexts.

WHO will pursue course accreditation for future learning in the Ready4Response series, as well as across other key offerings.

27 December 2021 marks the 2nd International Day of Epidemic Preparedness. We, in OpenWHO and WHO, are helping the world prepare for epidemic events with free online learning on 24 different diseases, from Cholera to Zika. Everyone, everywhere deserves access to knowledge to protect themselves and their loved ones from epidemics and other health emergencies. Join us today!

In its fifth year of operation, WHO’s OpenWHO.org learning platform has undergone significant development and expansion to meet the ongoing challenges of complex health emergencies globally. With increased engagement among learners during the COVID-19 pandemic, a series of major milestones were reached in 2021 highlighting the role OpenWHO plays in strengthening global health emergency response through online knowledge transfer.

By December 2021, OpenWHO had registered more than 6 million course enrolments and awarded more than 3 million certificates, the latter for course completion or surpassing the prescribed course assessment score. In total, learners have amassed more than 27 million video views across all platform content, comprising more than 693 000 hours of video streaming on connected devices. Along with a course completion rate well above the industry average for online learning, these milestones highlight the growing demand for relevant, high-quality learning resources in emergency contexts.

The scope of learning content across the platform has also grown to 120 total course topics, with 40 courses to support the COVID-19 response and 80 courses on other essential health topics, including an additional 23 diseases. Increased demand for reliable guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic is confirmed by measures of the most utilized learning content on the platform: Introduction to COVID-19 and COVID-19 personal protective equipment were the most visited and completed courses, respectively, and the animated COVID-19 explainer was the most popular video. Among the 18 OpenWHO learning channels, the COVID-19 channel was the most popular.

In demographic terms, students and health professionals, learners from India and those aged 20-29 are the most frequent visitors to OpenWHO. Among all learners, OpenWHO found that nearly half have enrolled in at least 2 courses and 71 000 superusers have completed at least 10 courses. Leveraging these repeat and superusers and to encourage learner activity more broadly, digital badges were introduced this year, with more than 60 000 badges already issued for course completers to share their learning achievements on social media.

To further increase learning uptake, OpenWHO now offers courses in 60 global languages, including the 15 most-spoken languages in the world as well as languages with high impact for affected populations, especially those in the least-developed countries. The Introduction to COVID-19 course was the most translated course and the French language was the most translated language. OpenWHO will expand these localization efforts going forward, with additional languages and translations underway to meet growing demand.

“For almost 2 years, we have worked together with amazing crowd power from all corners of the world and in particular from WHO country and regional offices to help ensure equitable access to pandemic and emergency-related WHO technical guidance in a large variety of languages. Evidence shows that accessing learning in preferred languages enhances uptake and comprehension and further can help save lives,” said Heini Utunen, acting Head of the Learning and Capacity Development Unit for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme.

Even with these expanded activities, the OpenWHO mandate to provide free, self-paced, accessible courses to improve health emergency response has remained unchanged. The platform continues to make life-saving knowledge available on a massive scale, not only to improve emergency response, having served frontline responders in outbreaks from Ebola to plague and now COVID-19, but also in anticipation of the next pandemic. It is with this aim that OpenWHO will continue to grow its learning portfolio in 2022 with a focus on serving countries with localized content, thereby strengthening health response globally and better serving affected populations now and in the future.

New courses and languages

New courses launched

We are pleased to announce the following COVID-19 courses:

• SocialNet: Social and behavioural insights COVID-19 data collection tool for Africa: This course introduces a data collection tool that can help countries or regions capture and use social and behavioural data in their response to the pandemic.
• Infodemic Management 101: This course is for anyone interested in understanding what an infodemic is, how it dramatically affects public health and what we can do about it now and into the future.

New courses on other health topics:

• Introduction to Marburg Virus Disease: The course introduces Marburg Virus Disease and outlines the signs, symptoms, diagnosis, transmission routes and epidemiology of the disease, as well as prevention and control strategies.
• Influenza prevention and control: This course provides an overview of the tools to prevent and control influenza. The training is intended for health workers and other stakeholders involved in preventing and treating influenza.
• Reducing antimicrobial resistance of treatable sexually transmitted infections in antenatal care: The aim of this course is to improve the prevention, detection, treatment and cure of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and other reproductive tract infections (RTIs) in settings serving pregnant women and their families.
• Infection Prevention and Control in Maternal and Neonatal Care: The aim of this training package is to integrate infection prevention and control (IPC) standards and practices within the key steps of the care pathway for women and newborns, from the pre-natal to the post-natal period.
• Health emergency and disaster risk management for resilient cities: This course examines the existing risk in cities and aims to introduce participants to knowledge and tools to manage all-hazard risks for effective health emergency and disaster risk management and building resilient cities from a health perspective.

New translations

60 languages on OpenWHO

OpenWHO is committed to translating courses into as many languages as possible, particularly those spoken by underserved and vulnerable communities, to make critical knowledge accessible to all. We are pleased to celebrate our 60th language on our platform, featuring the Tajik language.

The following 18 translations have been launched this month:

• Introduction to COVID-19 in Greek
• IPC health workers in Russian
• Public Health Emergency Operations Centre in Portuguese, Spanish and Lao
• Decontamination and sterilization of medical devices in Russian
• Guidance on mask use in Shona
• IPC core components in Russian
• Clinical management of patients with COVID-19: Investigations and care for mild, moderate and severe disease in Maithili
  
• Waste management in Russian and Dutch
• Environmental cleaning in Dutch
• Hand hygiene in Kazak
• COVID-19 and work in Japanese
• Occupational health and safety in Japanese
• Injection safety in Dutch
• SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid diagnostic testing in Kazak and Tajik

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has 40 courses on COVID-19, spread across 60 languages. All courses for COVID-19 can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language. You can also access our catalogues which show all courses and languages available for COVID-19 and other health topics here.

Share your OpenWHO achievements with your networks!

We are introducing new digital badges that can easily be shared across your social platforms. If you have earned a Record of Achievement in your course, then your digital badge comes along with it and can be found on your Certificates page. The badge will include a verification link with your name, date of issue and your results.

If you want to know more about OpenWHO digital badges, please click here.

New country added to the Serving Countries corner on OpenWHO

This portal offers learning resources to support a country's response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other health threats. Created in collaboration with WHO Country Offices and Ministries of Health, resources based on WHO scientific guidance are available in each country’s official language(s) to empower frontline health workers, policymakers and the public. Thailand is the most recent addition to our Serving Countries portal.

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here. The newsletter highlights are also available in Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

As 2021 draws to a close, the OpenWHO team would like to express our sincere thanks to each and every one of you for learning and growing with us. In the new year, we are committed to continuing to provide free access to expert knowledge to improve public health. Wishing you all a safe and healthy new year.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

WHO is developing an educational portfolio to help health staff take necessary actions to reduce the occurrence of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which WHO has declared to be one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity.

The portfolio is based on adult learning principles that encourage learners to apply knowledge to improve health practices within their current job function.

Resources include a new OpenWHO course covering the principles and best practices of sexually transmitted infection (STI) treatment and optimal antimicrobial use and stewardship. The course is targeted to clinical providers, such as nurses, midwives, doctors and pharmacists, and was launched ahead of World Antimicrobial Awareness Week from 18-24 November.

Click here to watch a video to learn more about the AMR educational portfolio, which will continue to be rolled out in 2022. You can also learn more about AMR by participating in other courses featured on OpenWHO’s AMR learning channel or by visiting the WHO website.

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) comprise 20 diseases or disease groups that affect more than 1 billion people, mainly living in poor, remote communities in the world’s tropical and sub-tropical areas. Some are associated with disabilities, deformities and social exclusion. Others are fatal without timely treatment. NTDs are often ignored or poorly known and therefore become devastating for affected individuals and their communities.

OpenWHO has played a critical role by enabling the continuation of training activities on NTDs as COVID-19 continues to seriously disrupt implementation of programmes and prevent on-site training courses on NTDs from being conducted. A major contribution to building capacity for public health control and management of NTDs has thus been the creation of a free-access learning channel on OpenWHO.org. The NTD channel was launched in March 2021 in collaboration with the Department of Control of NTDs at WHO headquarters.

The platform currently hosts 6 NTD-related courses in English; some courses are also available in Arabic, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, with additional translation underway. The 6 courses cover a wide area of work, including NTDs in the context of COVID-19, rabies and One Health, and skin NTDs (mycetoma, podoconiosis, scabies and tungiasis). The pandemic has resulted in the need to adapt NTD activities and community-based interventions to ensure safe delivery; all of these components are covered in the OpenWHO course on NTDs in the context of COVID-19 to support countries in maintaining essential health services.

Thus far, the NTD courses have totaled over 20 000 enrolments. More than 10 additional courses are being developed to provide a wider offering of online training resources dedicated to NTDs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has equalized the use of OpenWHO.org by gender. Prior to the pandemic, women represented 40% of platform learners, while men represented 60%; during the pandemic, the proportion of women participating in online learning on OpenWHO grew to 51%, slightly overtaking male learners (49%). The percentage of users identifying their gender as ‘other’ also increased from 0.08% to 0.15%. In courses on topics other than COVID-19, female learners provided fewer enrolments (43%).

Completion rates on OpenWHO have increased from 39% to a platform average of 54% during the pandemic. The platform has also expanded its reach to older and younger user groups. The age bracket of 70 years and older rose from 0% to 4.6% of learners, and users under 20 years have grown from 1.3% to 9.8%.

During the pandemic, enrolments from the WHO African Region have decreased from 23.1% to 8.6% of total enrolments, as interest in COVID-19 courses globally has outpaced courses addressing other, more regionalized outbreaks. Meanwhile, COVID-19 courses are both the most popular and have increased enrolments in the Southeast Asian (36%) and American (26%) regions.

When platform use is assessed based on countries’ classification by income level from the World Bank, additional shifts during the pandemic can be observed. Middle-income countries now dominate as the largest percentage of users (rising from 40.2% to 70.6% of total enrolments).

Influenza causes 3-5 million cases of severe illness and up to 650 000 respiratory deaths a year globally. Lower respiratory infections are the leading cause of death in low-income countries annually. Some populations are particularly vulnerable to seasonal influenza, either because they have a greater risk of exposure or because they have a greater risk of developing severe disease: pregnant women; health workers; people with chronic health conditions (such as diabetes, HIV, asthma, heart or lung disease); people over the age of 65 years; and children from 6 months to 59 months.

This course on Influenza prevention and control provides an overview of the tools to prevent and control influenza such as seasonal influenza vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. The training is intended for health workers and other stakeholders involved in preventing and treating influenza.

You can access more influenza-related courses through our Preparing for Pandemics channel, where you can learn more about the disease, surveillance, vaccination and risk communication.

Join us today and help protect the vulnerable this flu season!

In pursuit of equitable access, the OpenWHO team of the Learning and Capacity Development Unit has worked across the 3 levels of the Organization, and in particular together with WHO country and regional offices, to translate WHO’s evidence-based guidance into learning in the languages of Member States. Volunteer translators, public health institutes, Translators Without Borders and professional translation companies have been contributing to the translation work.

OpenWHO has translated COVID-19 online courses into as many languages as possible, nearing 60 languages on the platform, as WHO strives to ensure equitable access. Priority has been given to languages spoken by vulnerable or underserved populations in low- and middle-income countries as learning available in preferred languages enhances uptake and comprehension. These 56 languages available on OpenWHO include the official languages of every WHO region, the 15 most commonly spoken languages worldwide and the official languages of 43 out of 46 of the least-developed countries.

A total of 10.5 million words have been translated thus far and on average, each of OpenWHO’s COVID-19 courses has been translated into 4.8 languages. The 2 courses available in the most languages are the Introduction to COVID-19 course available in 44 languages and the Infection Prevention and Control course in 24 languages.

Multilingualism in OpenWHO's large-scale online production strategy has already resulted in 5.7 million course enrolments driven largely by 38 COVID-19 courses. The top 10 languages by enrolment are English (76.2%), Spanish (13.0%), French (3.1%), Arabic (1.5%), Portuguese (1.5%), Indian sign language (1.0%), Hindi (0.7%), Indonesian (0.6%), Russian (0.5%) and Italian (0.4%).

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here. The newsletter highlights are also available in Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

New courses and languages for COVID-19

New courses launched

We are pleased to announce the following COVID-19 course:

• WHO EMRO/UNSSC Leadership Programme on Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Response: COVID-19 Pandemic Cohort: Jointly designed by the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (WHO/EMRO) together with the United Nations Systems Staff College (UNSSC), this programme addresses topics such as leadership in times of crisis, preparedness, adopting a systems approach, strategic thinking, emotional resilience and multisectoral partnership building.

New courses on health topics:

• Rabies & One Health: From basics to cross-sectoral action to stop human rabies deaths: This course provides a general introduction to rabies, and the One Health approach currently taken to prevent it. It provides participants with knowledge about the biology and epidemiology of this Neglected Zoonotic Disease, the current “Zero by 30” rabies elimination strategy, and how to prevent rabies in people and dogs by taking a One Health approach.

• Mycetoma: Training of health workers at national and district levels on skin-NTDs: This course provides essential knowledge to national and frontline health workers on the epidemiology of mycetoma, clinical features, diagnosis, treatment and public health interventions.

New translations

30 September is International Translation Day! OpenWHO is committed to translating our COVID-19 courses into as many languages as possible, particularly those spoken by underserved and vulnerable communities, to make critical pandemic knowledge accessible to all.

The following 7 translations have been launched this month:

• Clinical management: Initial approach in Spanish
• Clinical management: General considerations in Dutch
• Clinical management: Investigations and care for mild, moderate and severe disease in Hindi and Nepali
• Clinical management: Rehabilitation of patients with COVID-19 in French
• Go.Data in Ukrainian
• Public Health Emergencies Operations Centre in Russian

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has 38 courses on COVID-19, spread across 53 languages. All courses for COVID-19 can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language. You can also access our catalogues which show all courses and languages available for COVID-19 and other health topics here.

WHO AFRO Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) Strategy online courses on OpenWHO

The aim of the training package is to contribute to the implementation of the WHO African Regional Office Regional strategy for integrated disease surveillance and response: 2020-2030 for preventing and responding to health emergencies. The 3rd Edition IDSR Technical Guidelines explicitly describe what needs to be established at each level of the health system to detect and respond to diseases, conditions and public health events that are responsible for preventable illnesses, deaths and disabilities in local communities.

The training package will consist of five courses in English, French and Portuguese. To date, Course 1 is available in English and French and the remaining 4 courses are all available in English. All courses should be launched in French and Portuguese by the end of 2021.

New countries added to the Serving Countries corner on OpenWHO

Additional countries have been added to the Serving Countries portal: Azerbaijan, India, Nepal and Somalia. This portal offers learning resources to support a country's response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other health threats. Created in collaboration with WHO Country Offices and Ministries of Health, resources based on WHO scientific guidance are available in each country’s official language(s) to empower frontline health workers, policymakers and the public.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

23 September is International Day of Sign Languages! Our Indian sign language course on COVID-19 has more than 54 000 learners, with top enrolments from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The course consists of 4 videos in Indian sign language, which provide an introduction to COVID-19 and show how to safely wear fabric and medical masks. It also includes a module customized for children with disabilities, with 2 text resources that cover the hygiene rules and precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The Rehabilitation Council of India has included the course in the list of WHO modules recommended for rehabilitation professionals to upgrade their knowledge and skills during the pandemic. It has also been highlighted by national and international media.

Read more in our 'Stories from the field' feature here.

The Best Education Paper Award was given to the full research paper "Delivering WHO’s Life-Saving Information in Real-Time During a Pandemic Through an Online Learning Platform: Evidence from Global Use" by the 31st Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) 2021 conference on the topic of Public Health and Informatics.

A total of 261 papers were presented in the conference and 2 awards were granted. The “John Mantas” Best Education Paper awarded research paper was published under the thematic area of Human Factors and Citizen Centered Digital Health and can here found here.

The full MIE 2021 Conference Proceedings are available here.

Exploring challenges and opportunities for inter-agencies work to prevent SEA

Date: Wednesday, 15th September 2021

Time: 13:00 - 14:30 Central European Time

Register now

Panelists:

• Ms Domenica Costantini, PSEA specialist, United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA
• Ms Wendy Cue,OCHA Senior Coordinator for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) and Sexual Harassment, Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Secretariat, United Nations Geneva
• Dr Ibrahima Socé Fall, Assistant Director-General, Emergency Response, WHO
• Ms Mariska De Keersmaecker, Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Officer International Organization for Migration, IOM

WHO has a zero-tolerance policy towards all forms of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (SEAH) and is committed to capacitating our workforce, partners and collaborators to prevent, protect from and respond effectively and quickly to any allegation of SEAH. Joining force across agencies to fight SEAH can power our efforts and positively impact communities, victims and survivors directly. For the rest of 2021, WHO, together with our partners and experts across the world, we will run a learning series #StopSEAH under hosted by our #LearningSavesLives movement. This and other webinars in the series offer a unique platform for social exchange and learning from each other. This first webinar in the series will focus on the progress and challenges that humanitarian and emergency response agencies face in combatting SEAH. It will look at what exists, the achievements to date and the barriers that still persist.

Moderator: Dr Gaya Gamhewage, Director a.i., Prevention & Response to Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (PRSEAH), WHO

In this webinar series, you will:

• Discuss main challenges faced by PSEA experts in countries
• Share experiences including best practices and lessons learned from PSEA experts and other institutions
• Define WHO’s contributions to countries inter agency network
• Discuss WHO’s reporting mechanism is described and know by experts and interventions to enhance reporting of SEA
• Share experiences in reinforcing community engagement

#OpenWHO #LearningSavesLives #StopSEAH

Since the Learning and Capacity Development Unit of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme was formed in October 2018, following what constituted the WHO Ebola Training Team of 2014–2015, multilingualism has been brought to the core of emergency learning. This was recognized in the 2020 United Nations Multilingualism in the United Nations system Joint Inspection Unit report.

According to the report, “WHO is well prepared and operational in producing materials for emergencies based on lessons learned and findings made during the Ebola West Africa outbreak, which have been progressively turned into practices. The new solutions and services put into practice, which relate mainly to capacity-building among staff and knowledge transfer, include: (a) local language translation capacity; (b) unlimited online dissemination to the frontline through a dedicated low-bandwidth platform; and (c) a process to turn evidence-based and emergency guidelines into knowledge resources for responders.

“As also recently experienced with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, disease transmission chains cannot be stopped unless people understand how to keep themselves and their families safe. This means communicating in the right languages and formats for the widest possible audience at each location. These findings highlight the need for better information on the comprehension levels and communication preferences of people across affected and at-risk areas.”