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.”

The Elsje Finck-Sanichar College COVAB in Suriname specializes in the education of nurses and caretakers. COVAB and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/ World Health Organization (WHO) have cultivated a longstanding relationship, and PAHO has facilitated the improved access for students and staff to the online educational platform OpenWHO. During the pandemic, five key courses related to COVID-19 were translated and offered in Dutch, making the material even more accessible for the local college.

PAHO spoke with Winamba Bamoeje, Education Manager at COVAB and Farzana Mohamed, who recently graduated from COVAB as a nurse practitioner, about the use of the OpenWHO courses during the pandemic.

How has education at COVAB changed since the pandemic hit Suriname?

“When the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in March 2020, COVAB removed all its students from healthcare institutions to assess the situation and generate next steps”, Mrs. Bamoeje tells us. A 3-week holiday was announced for the students and during that time, our management team and Director worked towards a solution to continue all educational tracks at COVAB so the students would not get behind on their studies. The college decided to implement distance-learning and on April 14th, 2020, we started offering classes online using Microsoft Teams. All planned exams, were taken online, including the final presentation by the students. Farzana (Mohamad) was in one of the first batches of students that completed their educational track with COVAB online.

“We as students were very happy with this quick response and sustainable solution by COVAB, and didn’t experience any delay”, added Ms. Mohamed.

“Because of distance-learning, I along with many other students found that this also created opportunities for us to work in addition to studying, which was a bit more difficult before, with the face-to-face classes.”

How has the organization adapted to distance-learning and what are the constraints in terms of distance-learning?

“Converting an institution that has always operated in-person to digital teaching methods is always difficult – the right software and enough hardware (computers) being of the utmost importance. Therefore, we were incredibly grateful that PAHO donated equipment for distance-learning such as laptops and cameras to our institution. When the OpenWHO courses for healthcare staff launched in English, we implemented an active participation policy for these courses, making them mandatory for our students. The language barrier was deemed a challenge in many instances however for both students and staff."

"After the courses had been translated and offered in Dutch by PAHO/WHO however, the participation rate went up and we received many positive responses from both staff and students alike”, explained Mrs. Bamoeje.

We implemented the use of Microsoft Teams throughout our organizations and offered “learning packages” to our students consisting of (handouts of) PowerPoint presentations, materials, and class planning. The Dean would regularly check up on the students, and if they informed us that they did not have access to internet we arranged an allowance of 50 SRD per day to activate internet on their phones or invited them to use COVAB’s Wi-Fi on site.

Getting our staff, as well as freelance educators, proper training to teach online, came with certain challenges. Digital literacy proved to be an issue in some instances, and with more than 300 teachers, providing the training, to work with distance-learning tools was quite challenging at times.

“Some students found it difficult to study in their own time, because holding oneself accountable and responsible is not everyone’s strong suit”, Ms. Mohamed elaborated, “But I do think it also helps to develop these skills, so it’s certainly not a negative development in my opinion. The OpenWHO courses are also very easily accessed through a mobile application, making them very user-friendly. Time management during this hectic period, was also crucial and what helped a lot is that the OpenWHO courses can be finished in parts. So, if I had to work one day and would only be able to complete 2 hours of a 4-hour course, I could finish the last 2 hours another day.”

How have the translated OpenWHO courses from English to Dutch impacted your organization? Is there a certain success story you would like to share?

“Language was definitely a barrier at first and we found that most people did not want to or were not able to participate in the courses in English. This changed after the courses got translated”, said Mrs. Bamoeje. As participation went up, and the courses could be finished by the students independently, the teachers had more time to prepare on other segments of education. The students simply had to provide their certificates of the completed mandatory courses.

“For me, the certificates I obtained through the OpenWHO COVID-19 response courses on topics such as PPE, COVID-19 patient care, and vaccination training helped me not only expand on essential knowledge and training during the pandemic, but also helped me and other students get temporary jobs at the vaccination sites. As a recent graduate, the Director of a hospital where I got hired as a nurse practitioner, also specifically applauded these additional courses on my CV and I’m sure other graduates will also experience, or have also had similar experiences when applying for jobs”, added Ms. Mohamed. “Because the OpenWHO courses not only cover how to administer the vaccinations, but also broader knowledge such as storage, proper handling etc., I noticed that at the vaccination sites, I was entrusted with more responsibility than those that had not followed these courses. The OpenWHO courses are very thorough.”

Looking back at a little over a year of COVID-19 in Suriname, how has PAHO contributed to helping your organization better manage this health emergency?

“PAHO has significantly contributed towards the improvement of our education through the continuous support of distance-learning, by providing material and courses. We’ve talked about the OpenWHO courses but let me add to that. On June 14th, our specialized education track started, and our students that live in District Nickerie, who previously had to travel all the way to Paramaribo to participate in the courses, have now been able to follow the courses at the COVAB facility in Nickerie, with laptops and material provided by PAHO. Students, both in Paramaribo and Nickerie are also able to borrow these laptops for studying or completing assignments at home.

In addition, the OpenWHO courses are not only beneficial for COVAB, but for healthcare in general in Suriname. We share the courses with our colleagues from other healthcare institutions, with our alumni, with our freelance and part-time teachers, to further help spread the essential knowledge to better respond to the COVID-19 crisis”, Mrs. Bamoeje elaborated.

PAHO/WHO launched the OpenWHO landing page for Suriname in May 2021, making the courses in Dutch even more accessible to local healthcare students and professionals.

This story was originally published in the PAHO/WHO website and is available here.

The pandemic affects everyone – that’s why WHO is working to enhance health literacy as part of the global effort to fight COVID-19 by providing free online courses on OpenWHO.org.

OpenWHO learners come from all parts of the world and all sectors, from education, to transportation, to the entertainment industry. 28% of OpenWHO learners are health professionals, who need new knowledge during the pandemic to work safely and effectively.

OpenWHO is also reaching underserved demographics with real-time knowledge during the pandemic. Women represent 51% of OpenWHO learners, compared to 40% prior to the pandemic. 5% of OpenWHO learners are 70 years of age or older – a previously unrepresented demographic – as those vulnerable to COVID-19 actively seek life-saving information. The proportion of learners under age 20 has grown from 1% before the pandemic to 10% today.

In addition, OpenWHO course completion rates have increased from 39% before the pandemic to an average of 54% during the pandemic.

As of August 2021, OpenWHO.org hosts 5.6 million total enrolments across more than 100 different courses on 17 learning channels, including 37 courses for COVID-19. The platform offers courses in 55 languages and has awarded 2.9 million certificates.

Geneva, Switzerland / New York, USA / Incheon, Korea

According to UN data, today 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. COVID-19 is ravaging the world, challenging cities and their citizens, with significant impacts on the social and health infrastructure and the economy. There is still a long road ahead before the pandemic is over. Towards creating more resilient and equitable societies post COVID-19, the training “Build back better: Harnessing South-South cooperation and disaster risk reduction planning for resilient and healthy cities in the post COVID-19 era” was organized from 8 to 29 June 2021.

This 4-week workshop was jointly organized by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Global Education and Training Institute (GETI), the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) under the framework of its Cities Project, and the World Health Organization (WHO) through its OpenWHO.org team. The training builds on the 3 agencies’ missions to improve urban disaster risk reduction (DRR) and resilience and health equity through harnessing South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC) and disaster risk reduction planning.

Four live webinar sessions took place every Tuesday in June 2021. The first session on 8 June focused on an introduction to the conceptual frameworks of DRR planning, health emergency response preparedness and SSTC. The second session, led by UNDRR on 15 June, focused on the utilization of the Public Health System Resilience Addendum (PHA) of the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities towards strengthening the integration of public health issues in DRR and resilience planning, highlighting also the example of Makati City, Philippines. The third session, led by WHO on 22 June, took a deep dive into the issues that impact the way cities and local governments prepare for and respond to health emergencies and other risks.

The final session on 29 June focused on sharing frontline experiences and practical measures used by national and local authorities in reopening safely and adjusting public health emergency response and DRR planning in response to the recent resurgences. Health authorities and experts from the Government of Bangladesh Cabinet Division, Santiago Metropolitan Region of Chile, China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), City of Milan – Italy, Fujian Provincial CDC – China, and Ministry of Health and Wellness of Mauritius joined and exchanged with the participants.

Sanjaya Bhatia, Head of the Global Education and Training Institute, UNDRR, pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates that cities need to transit to a “new normal” and local authorities can use this as an opportunity to shape new and innovative policies that strengthen health systems, improve social protection, pursue climate-friendly solutions and continue the pathway towards resilience.

Overall, the training attracted more than 5000 registrations from 165 countries and territories, with close to 3000 participants joining each session from more than 1000 cities in 155 countries. Approximately 35% of the participants were from national and local governments, 24% from academic and research institutes, 12% from civil society organizations (CSOs), 12% from the private sector, and slightly more than 10% from the UN and international government organizations. Gender participation was almost equal.

At the end of the course, more than 2000 people responded to the online post-webinar survey. Among these respondents, 98% reported having gained knowledge on public health, health emergency response tools, SSTC and DRR that would be applicable to their work, and close to 90% would like to be part of the “South-South Cities Clusters” platform and collaborate with UNDRR, UNOSSC and WHO on future activities. More than 1400 participants completed the final assessments, passed the quiz and obtained a certificate of completion.

Links:

• About the training course
• Video clip: A look back on how we explored building back better, 8-29 Jun 2021
• Training report

For more information, contact:

• UNDRR GETI at undrr-incheon@un.org
• UNOSSC at southsouth.cities@unossc.org
• WHO Health Emergencies Programme at WHEtraining@who.int

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 courses:

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

• SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid diagnostic testing: SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDT) are being used globally to test suspect COVID-19 cases in contexts where PCR diagnostic may not be available. This course aims to provide Ag-RDT users with an understanding of the theoretical and practical components of SARS-CoV-2 Ag-RDT testing.

New courses in other topics:

• WHO Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Emergencies: The objective of this course is to provide high-level information and contextual understanding of WHO Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Emergencies. The course is available in both English and French and is designed for personnel who will be assigned by WHO to go on deployment in response to health emergencies.

• Recognizing and managing anaphylaxis: This course provides guidance on how to recognize and differentiate between anaphylaxis and immunization stress-related response and respond to anaphylaxis as an adverse event following immunization.

• Neglected Tropical Diseases training package: NTDs are a group of diseases that affect mainly deprived populations in tropical and sub-tropical countries. Aiming to protect communities and empower healthcare workers around the world, OpenWHO has launched dedicated training resources to address some of these diseases – Tungiasis, Podoconiosis and Scabies – with additional courses under development.

• One Health approach training: Two new courses have become available on the OpenWHO One Health Channel. These trainings explore principles and best practices for strengthening the One Health approach for zoonotic diseases nationally and sub-nationally: Navigating the Tripartite Zoonoses Guide (TZG): A training for advocates and implementers and the Joint Risk Assessment (JRA OT): A Training for Implementers.

New translations

The following 6 translations for COVID-19 have been launched this month:

• Clinical management: Rehabilitation of patients with COVID-19 in Russian
• Clinical management: Initial approach in Somali
• Clinical management: General considerations in Indonesian
• Occupational Health and Safety in Dutch
• Neglected Tropical Diseases in the context of COVID-19 in Portuguese and Arabic

Updates to course content

A new video recording has been added to the Scientific and strategic talks on COVID-19 portal. In this new video, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove gives an overview of the epidemiologic situation of the COVID-19 pandemic and outlines the global response and way forward.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has 37 courses on COVID-19, spread across 52 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-related topics here.

New Antimicrobial Resistance channel

This new channel offers learning resources to support implementation of the Global Action Plan on AMR (2015), by building health care worker competencies to help combat antimicrobial resistance in their daily clinical practice. Currently, the page hosts two courses which are available in several UN and national languages: Antimicrobial Stewardship: A competency-based approach and Drug-resistant tuberculosis: how to interpret rapid molecular test results.

New Stories from the field page

The “Stories from the field” page highlights how OpenWHO learning resources are being deployed in countries to support the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other health threats. To read these inspirational stories, please access the page under ‘Find out more’ in the top menu or click here.

#LearningSavesLives webinars

You can now re-watch past #LearningSavesLives webinars on our new dedicated page here. Since February, the Learning and Capacity Development team, working in close coordination with other WHO Health Emergencies Programme teams, hosted 8 #LearningSavesLives webinars in multiple languages (English, Spanish, French and Portuguese). Learn from our panel of experts on a variety of topics and stay tuned for future sessions!

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator’s Country Readiness and Delivery workstream developed an OpenWHO training course for national and sub-national stakeholders on key aspects of COVID-19 vaccine deployment. The initial courses launched in December 2020 and were complemented by vaccine product-specific trainings in March 2021. As of June 2021, the Orientation to National Deployment and Vaccination Planning for COVID-19 Vaccines (NDVP) course had more than 15 000 learners in English alone and is available in over 13 languages.

A learner feedback survey was conducted from March to April 2021 to understand the impact of the trainings, usability for learners, and potential value of online training expansion for other immunizations. Using the survey responses and data available from the OpenWHO platform, WHO assessed the knowledge gained from participating in the course. The increase of knowledge from the course was assessed using the average score change between the pre-test and the post-test.

The scores increased by an average of 44% for the NDVP course from an average pre-test score of 51.5% to an average post-test score of 95.5%. Additionally, a substantially higher rate of the enrolled learners completed the course than the industry benchmark for a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).

The user feedback provides insight for WHO learning providers in health emergencies. Over 96% of the survey participants agreed that they have more confidence in performing their professional roles related to COVID-19 vaccination after taking the course. More than 60% of learners in the survey indicated that they prefer online learning over other training options. However, 44% of survey participants had at least one barrier to online learning (such as internet connection, IT related issues, not enough time to complete the course, language barriers, etc.). Despite these limitations, learners, all levels of WHO and partners have expressed strong interest in further expansion of the OpenWHO online learning courses

The old proverb states that necessity is the mother of invention. While webinars are not a particularly new invention, for OpenWHO.org their use marks the beginning of a new, powerful platform for engaging and expanding its user base in the health emergency preparedness and response arena.

Since February, participation in webinars has been substantial: nearly 20 000 participants have attended a total of 12 webinars produced with OpenWHO collaboration. If we were to equate our reach in terms of filling a stadium, it would compare to filling two-thirds of the Stade de Genève, Lancy (capacity 30 000) with participants.

As we all know, the ongoing pandemic has been marked by the rapid emergence of massive amounts of new knowledge on how to respond. This new knowledge is often presented in isolation, with little context or space for analysis and reflection, and countered by misinformation and disinformation. The flood of information is overwhelming, and the noise that comes with it distracts from what is free and available. Helping address this is at the heart of the new webinar series.

In practical terms, late last year, the Learning and Capacity Development team, working in close coordination with other WHO Health Emergencies Programme teams, realized that there was an opportunity and a clear need to empower the millions who were already taking advantage of OpenWHO.org COVID-19 course offerings, bring context and grow our shared learner base. With this in mind, the #LearningSavesLives webinar series was born.

As Heini Utunen, who manages the OpenWHO platform, explains: "We wanted to help our users connect the dots, to help transform the available information into applicable, powerful knowledge... to help them realize how they could better capitalize on the growing universe of COVID-19 courses being offered in multiple languages... to bring opportunities to maximize that knowledge by hearing the experiences of those working in the field and WHO experts."

As the pandemic continues, webinars have endured as a popular interactive tool to transfer life-saving knowledge to all corners of the globe. Grounded on OpenWHO.org principles of equity, free access and lifelong learning, these webinars provide a unique opportunity for anyone with an internet connection to interact directly with experts and those in the field.

Since February, we have held 8 #LearningSavesLives webinars in multiple languages (English, Spanish, French and Portuguese). In June, a second limited-duration multilingual webinar series was launched in English, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, French and Arabic. This forward-looking joint online training is titled, "Build back better: Harnessing South-South cooperation and risk reduction planning for resilient and healthy cities in the post COVID-19 era" and was co-organized with the UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Global Education and Training Institute (GETI).

While the summer season in the northern hemisphere will be quieter in terms of the number of webinars, the autumn will see more taking place. We invite you to stay tuned, present us with ideas, partner with us and help us share information about future sessions so more people can benefit from the product of our shared collaboration.

Together we can help end this pandemic and begin to set the path to build back better a post-pandemic world.

'One Health' is an approach in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes. One area of work in which a One Health approach is particularly relevant includes the control of zoonoses (diseases that can spread between animals and humans, such as avian flu, rabies and Rift Valley Fever) where efforts by just one sector cannot prevent or eliminate the problem. A One Health approach is key to the management of shared threats for future outbreaks and pandemics at the human-animal-environment interface.

Three new courses are available on the OpenWHO One Health Channel, allowing learners from around the globe to explore principles and best practices for a One Health approach for zoonotic diseases. The first course introduces the critical role of international frameworks to help human and animal health sectors ‘bridge’ their work to meet shared goals for disease preparedness and response. Once learners understand the role of collaborative work in their country context, they can then explore the practical approaches set forth in the Tripartite Zoonoses Guide and its operational tools. The second course offering on the One Health channel allows learners to explore and navigate the technical chapters of the Tripartite Zoonoses Guide in more depth, using country examples to propel their learning to the next level. And finally, a training for implementers is available for those interested in using the Joint Risk Assessment operational tool to asses and manage zoonotic diseases hazards at national and subnational levels.

Join us today and begin exploring the principles and best practices for a One Health approach in countries!

Monthly newsletter

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

Ready4Response Tier 1 and 2: Now available for frontline responders

This training package aims to develop consistent learning standards across the emergency response workforce, equipping participants with essential competencies needed to work across the various levels of response.

We invite you to enrol in the courses of this training package:

• Ready4Response Tier 1: Response context and principles

• Ready4Response Tier 2: Systems, structures, and skills

#LearningSavesLives Webinar Series

Intertwined: Diseases of man and beast and their impact on lives and livelihoods

On World Zoonosis Day 2021, 6 July 14:00 (CET), join our global panel of experts and practitioners to discuss the impact zoonotic diseases have on our lives, health, and livelihoods and discuss how we can build the capacity and systems to address the impact of zoonotic diseases.

You can register for this webinar here.

New courses and languages for COVID-19

Celebrating 100 course topics

We are pleased to announce OpenWHO’s 100th course topic. The course focuses on management strategies when caring for patients with mild, moderate, and severe COVID-19.

• Clinical management of patients with COVID-19: Investigations and care for mild, moderate, and severe disease.

New translations

The following 13 translations for COVID-19 have been launched this month:

• ePROTECT in Kazakh

• IPC for COVID-19 in Kazakh

• COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers in Kazakh

• IPC leadership in Albanian and Azerbaijani

• Introduction to COVID-19 in Kazakh

• Neglected tropical diseases in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spanish and French

• Health and peace in Arabic

• Clinical care SARI in Kazakh

• Operational Planning Guidelines and COVID-19 Partners Platform to support country preparedness and response in Kazakh

• Clinical management of patients with COVID-19: Rehabilitation of patients with COVID-19 in Chinese

• Personal protective equipment in Kazakh

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now offers 35 courses on COVID-19, spread across 52 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-related topics here.

New Serving Countries channel on OpenWHO

The Serving Countries channel 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. So far, the following country pages are available: India, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Viet Nam.

New channels on OpenWHO

COVID-19 Vaccines channel

The new COVID-19 Vaccines channel provides health workers, national and subnational focal points, and partners with the information to ensure safe and efficient COVID-19 vaccine delivery. The following courses are currently available under this channel: COVID-19 vaccine-specific resources; Orientation to national deployment and vaccination planning for COVID-19 vaccines, and COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers.

Go.Data channel

This channel provides resources to learn how to use the Go.Data software for contact tracing and data collection in outbreak response. The channel offers online training courses in several languages and short how-to video tutorials that demonstrate how to use key functionalities of the Go.Data software.

Scientific and strategic talks on COVID-19

This page hosts video recordings of presentations given by WHO experts from a variety of fields at conferences and other forums, so that this essential knowledge can continue to be shared across the globe.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

Celebrating World Zoonoses Day 2021

Date: Tuesday, 6th July 2021

Time: 14:00 - 15:30 Central European Time

Register now

Panelists:

• Dr Bernadette Abela-RIDDER, Scientist, Department of the Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, WHO HQ
• Dr Wesinew Adugna, Livestock Program Manager, VSF-Suisse, Ethiopia
• Dr Barbara Alessandrini, Head of the Capacity Building Department, OIE, France
• Ms. Edwinah Atusingwize, Research Associate, Department of Disease Control and Environmental Health, Makerere University, Uganda
• Dr Nitish Debnath, Team Leader, Fleming Fund Project, Bangladesh
• Prof. Oladele Ogunseitan, Leader of Training and Empowerment, USAID One Health Workforce|Next Generation Project, University of California, Irvine, US
• Dr Stéphane de la Rocque, Team Leader, Human Animal Interface, Health Security preparedness Department, WHO HQ
• Dr Nigel Swift, Global Head of Veterinary Public Health, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health, France
• Prof Andrea Winkler, Co-Director of Centre for Global Health Technical University of Munich, Germany

Did you know the majority of infectious diseases in people are of animal origin? We call these zoonotic diseases. Seven out of ten new disease discovered the last decade – including the virus that is responsible for the COVID19 pandemic, are caused by pathogens which jumped from animals to humans. The truth is that our lives and health are closely intertwined with animals and the environment in which we all live. On World Zoonosis Day 2021, join our global panel of experts and practitioners to discuss the impact zoonotic diseases have on our lives, health, and livelihoods and discuss how we can build the capacity and systems to address the impact of zoonotic diseases.

Moderator: Dr Gaya Gamhewage, Head of Learning & Capacity Development, Health Emergencies Programme, WHO

Zoonosis related courses on OpenWHO👇

• Avian and other zoonotic influenza: Introduction | OpenWHO
• Rift Valley fever: Introduction | OpenWHO
• Leptospirosis: Introduction | OpenWHO

#OpenWHO #LearningSavesLives #HealthForAll #BuildingsustainablesystemforOneHealth

Today marks 4 years of open-source learning operations on OpenWHO.org. The online platform was designed to be readily scalable for a global pandemic. As it entered its 4th year of operations, the platform was already in a real-time pandemic test – and serves the world by delivering WHO’s evidence-based learning materials in free and accessible online formats in a massive scale.

OpenWHO use and reach has expanded over the years, with massive growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. The platform opened to the public with the launch of a Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) course in June 2017.

The first pilot course on the platform was launched with African region in March 2017 on Managing 21st Century Epidemics. The pilot was a positive experience, including its accessibility in low-bandwidth environments, a key priority for the OpenWHO team. Currently, ¾ users of the platform are from the low- and middle-income countries.

We are soon up in 100 different course topics, in 53 languages and counting. OpenWHO hosts 5.3 million enrolments from all over the world and reaches very high completion rates, average 60 % (2.9 million certificates). We have nearly 10 million words translated. Thank you for all learners for having joined!

Today, on UN Russian Language Day, OpenWHO celebrates over 25 000 enrolments across 17 courses available in the Russian language. The OpenWHO platform, developed utilizing Russian Federation funds and launched in 2017, is WHO’s interactive, web-based, knowledge-transfer platform offering free online courses to improve responses to health emergencies.

Together with the WHO European Region Office, OpenWHO launched its first online course in Russian in June 2019 on the WHO Incident Management System (IMS). The number of courses and course enrolments on the OpenWHO learning platform in Russian language has only seen an increase throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since June 2019, OpenWHO has published 17 Russian language courses with 13 of these published since January 2020 specific to COVID-19. This includes multiple course offered for frontline responders and decision makers on COVID-19 on topics ranging from infection prevention and control (IPC) to COVID-19 vaccine-specific resources. As new WHO guidance and tools are released, the Russian language courses are updated, ensuring all courses cover up-to-date and accurate information. The remaining 4 course topics launched in Russian cover other critical health topics such as Antimicrobial Resistance and Tobacco Control and the translation of more courses into Russian is underway. All Russian courses are accessible here.

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 courses:

• Prevention, identification, and management of infections in health workers in the context of COVID-19: This course will highlight the epidemiology and risk factors associated with health worker infections with SARS-CoV-2; review measures that can be put in place to reduce risks; support identification of infection in health workers and review strategies for managing health workers to safely return to work post-infection.

• Clinical management of patients with COVID-19: Initial approach to the acutely ill patient: The aim of this training is to prepare and support health providers as they provide emergency care to seriously ill patients.

• Transmission-based precautions: This course will cover the main modes of transmission; what precautions can be used to stop the spread of COVID-19 and what personal protective equipment is required when caring for patients.

Coming soon

• Standard precautions: The role of personal protective equipment: In this training, you will explore the role of personal protective equipment (PPE); explain how to use PPE correctly and appropriately; identify types of PPE and how to safely put on, use and remove PPE.

New translations

The following 15 translations for COVID-19 have been launched this month:

• IPC Leadership in French
• Introduction to COVID-19 in Tamil and Haitian Creole
• Intra-Action Review in Arabic, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian
• Occupational Health and Safety in Indonesian
• National Deployment vaccination planning in Spanish and Arabic
• Guidance on mask use in Albanian and Macedonian
• Clinical care SARI in Sinhala
• Mass gatherings in French.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has 34 courses on COVID-19, spread across 49 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 shows all courses and languages available for COVID-19 and other health-related topics here.

Joint Certificate Programme: Build Back Better

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR GETI), United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) and WHO have joined together to deliver a unique online training for local authorities and urban practitioners on Build Back Better: Harnessing South-South cooperation and risk reduction planning for resilient and healthy cities in the post COVID-19 era. The training will be held on the 8, 15, 22 and 29 June 2021, with a total of 4 online sessions, one end-of-course assessment, and one post-course survey.

You can find more information here. You can register for the online training here.

COVID-19 vaccine related courses available in all UN languages and other national languages

Working with WHO expert teams OpenWHO has launched several courses to transfer critical knowledge on vaccination for the evolving COVID-19 pandemic. The following courses are currently available in all UN languages and other national languages: COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers, Orientation to national deployment and vaccination planning for COVID-19 vaccines and the COVID-19 vaccine specific resources.

Share your achievements on LinkedIn!

After successfully completing a COVID-19 related course, OpenWHO users can now share their record of achievements certification with a verification link which will confirm the authenticity of the certificate.

Antimicrobial Stewardship: A competency-based approach now available in new languages

The aim of this course is to better prepare clinicians who frequently prescribe antimicrobials with the knowledge and tools to improve their use of these essential medications in daily clinical practice. The Antimicrobial Stewardship course has been made available recently in Spanish and Russian. The course is also available in English, French, and Italian.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

On April 23, to celebrate the International Spanish Language Day, the Pan American Health Organization PAHO and OpenWHO co-hosted a webinar with testimonies on how the virtual training has been instrumental in defending public health and protecting lives in the Americas. During the webinar speakers from across the Americas shared their experiences on how PAHO's Virtual Campus and OpenWHO platforms enabled rapid national scale-up for training during the first year COVID19 pandemic, making life-saving knowledge available, accessible and locally contextualized.

Watch the webinar recording here.

#LearningSavesLives Webinar Series

Data: 5 de maio de 2021

Hora: 8:00h Brasil, 11:00h São Tomé e Príncipe, 12h Angola, 13h Suíça / Moçambique, 20h Timor-Leste

REGISTE-SE AGORA

Orador principal

• Bernardo Mariano Junior, Director, Saúde Digital e Inovação Director de Informação OMS

Palestrantes

• Professor Alex Jones Flores Cassenote, Epidemiologista FMUSP, Brasil
• Janine Giuberti Coutinho, Doutoramento em Nutrição Humana e Especialista em Saúde Pública
• Luis dos Reis, Chefe de Equipa, Planeamento e Gestão de Programas, Saúde Ambiental e Programa de Emergência Sanitária, Timor-Leste, ​OMS
• Vilfrido Santana Gil, Conselheiro para Prevenção e Controlo de Doenças/Ponto focal emergência sanitária. São Tomé e Príncipe, OMS

Moderador

• Mônica Diniz Durães, Consultora Nacional, Unidade Técnica Capacidades Humanas para a Saúde, Escritório da OPAS/OMS no Brasil

Responder aos desafios colocados pela pandemia da COVID-19 requer o uso de todas as ferramentas que a humanidade tem à sua disposição - uma das mais importantes é garantir que os trabalhadores da linha de frente em todo o mundo tenham acesso ao conhecimento mais recente em seu próprio idioma. A língua portuguesa não é apenas uma das línguas mais difundidas no mundo, - com mais de 265 milhões de falantes espalhados por todos os continentes - mas também a língua mais falada no hemisfério sul. O português é um dos principais idiomas de comunicação internacional e uma língua com forte projeção geográfica destinada a crescer, especialmente em África.

Por ocasião do Dia Internacional da Língua Portuguesa, ouviremos em primeira mão como falantes de português em todo o mundo estão respondendo à pandemia, e como os mais recentes conhecimentos sobre a COVID-19 estão sendo disponibilizados para serem usados e disseminados em todo o mundo. Exploraremos as oportunidades de aprendizagem disponíveis para falantes de português, e mapearemos alguns dos desafios futuros que se colocam, não só na resposta à atual pandemia mas também no acesso a conhecimentos essenciais de saúde pública que ajudarão as sociedades a se reconstruirem melhor após a pandemia.

A equipe da OpenWHO.org comemorou recentemente o primeiro aniversário da publicação de seu primeiro curso COVID-19. Desde então, disponibilizamos 29 cursos COVID-19 em diversos idiomas, sendo 9 deles o português. Embora tenhamos tido uma aceitação significativa durante a pandemia, com mais de 5 milhões de inscrições na plataforma OpenWHO, sabemos que muitos mais falantes da língua portuguesa poderiam se beneficiar do conhecimento oferecido pela OpenWHO

REGISTE-SE AGORA

#OpenWHO #LearningSavesLives #HealthForAll #linguaportuguesa #aprenderemportuguês

Strengthening COVID-19 response with the latest science

The rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic called for the latest science and technical knowledge on COVID-19 to be disseminated quickly to Indonesia's health workforce. Amidst various information sources, health workers seek a credible source of knowledge to guide them in responding to COVID-19. OpenWHO courses provide trusted and structured courses based on the latest science to fill in the knowledge gap in the COVID-19 response.

WHO Indonesia technical team selects the courses to be disseminated based on identified needs on the ground. All course materials are translated into the Indonesian language and context, with a rigorous editing process to ensure technical accuracy. On 7 March 2020, in a matter of days since the first COVID-19 case was reported in the country, WHO in Indonesia launched the first OpenWHO course on ePROTECT and Infection Prevention and Control in the Indonesian language.

To broaden the reach of OpenWHO, courses are promoted widely through social media, email, and group chats across our networks and partners. Each course information and registration link are also announced on the Ministry of Health's (MoH) emerging diseases website and the Indonesian Hospital Association (PERSI) 's website.

MoH Head of Basic Immunization Unit, Dr Dyan Sawitri, said that OpenWHO courses have equipped her team with the technical knowledge and operational know-how needed to strengthen Indonesia's COVID-19 response. The 'COVID 19 vaccination training for health workers', in particular, has provided comprehensive information that covers vaccine types, logistical procedures, cold chain preparation, and implementation steps. More than 1300 participants have enrolled in this training since it was launched on 24 February 2021

"The OpenWHO course on COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers course has provided technical knowledge on all aspects of COVID-19 vaccination for my team and health workers in general. We often get questions from the subnational level on different aspects of COVID-19, and we always refer to WHO recommendations and content from the OpenWHO course as one of our key references. A well-trained and confident health workforce is a crucial pillar to ensure safe vaccination across Indonesia, and OpenWHO is strengthening our health workforce with the latest science," said Dr Dyan. "Communication aspects of COVID-19 vaccination are important to fight misinformation, and it is also a topic that is rarely discussed in technical health meetings, so it is good to see that this topic is covered as part of the OpenWHO course", she said.

The MoH continues to adopt various WHO technical guidance in the national technical guidance on COVID-19 response. Content from the OpenWHO courses is also adopted in MoH training modules. As of 12 April 2021, more than 27 000 participants have enrolled in the eight OpenWHO courses available in Indonesian.