We invite you to register for the joint certificate training programme on the “Whole-of-society approach to creating healthy, resilient and sustainable cities: Harnessing South-South Cooperation for a post-COVID era”. This is the 4th edition of a programme organized annually by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Global Education and Training Institute (UNDRR GETI), UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Enrolling in the training is free; however, registration is limited to up to 1000 participants on a first-come first-served basis.

The training will take place on 7, 14, 21 and 27 June 2023 at 14:00 CET through the UNOSSC virtual training platform (access link will be provided to course registrants only).

The sessions will be held in English with simultaneous interpretation in Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Participants who meet the following requirements will be awarded a certificate of completion: 1) 75% attendance; 2) complete a course evaluation survey; and 3) pass an end-of-course exam with a score of 80% or above.

Please register here. Interested participants must complete the registration form by Wednesday, 31 May 2023.

The hands of health care workers play a critical role in keeping patients safe. As we mark World Hand Hygiene Day on 5 May, join our free online course to learn how – Available in 18 languages!

The 1-hour course provides a certificate and digital badge to participants who receive at least 70% on the post-test.

You can learn more about World Hand Hygiene Day here.

On 25 April, we invite you to observe World Malaria Day by joining the 11 000 learners enrolled in our free malaria elimination course. The course was just launched in French, adding to the English version released last year and expanding access to new learners.

All malaria programmes at national or subnational level need to be oriented to the activities and dynamic strategies required to achieve interruption of transmission, prevent re-establishment and achieve WHO certification. The course covers all relevant technical areas, including but not limited to malaria parasite biology, immunology and epidemiology; surveillance and response; case management; vector control and entomological surveillance; acceleration strategies; stratification to tailor interventions; and management and planning of an elimination programme.

The curriculum aims to equip participants with the knowledge and skills to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate a programme for malaria elimination and prevention of re-establishment of transmission. It is designed for health professionals responsible for planning, managing, implementing or evaluating malaria programmes or malaria elimination programmes.

A Confirmation of Participation is available to participants who complete 100% of the course material.

You can learn more about World Malaria Day and the 2023 theme “Time to deliver zero malaria: invest, innovate, implement” here.

World Immunization Week is celebrated the last week of April to highlight the collective action needed to protect people from vaccine-preventable diseases.

The theme of 2023 is 'The Big Catch-Up': We need to act now to catch-up the millions of children who missed out on vaccines during the pandemic, restore essential immunization coverage to at least 2019 levels and strengthen primary health care to deliver immunization.

As we observe World Immunization Week, we invite you to participate in one of our free online courses on immunization, including our inequality monitoring in immunization course.

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 2-hour course introduces the general steps of inequality monitoring in immunization, which should be an integral part of a country’s immunization programme. A Record of Achievement and digital badge are available to participants who score at least 80% of the total points available in the final assessment.

You can learn more about World Immunization Week here.

WHO’s new policy on preventing and addressing sexual misconduct, which came into effect on 8 March 2023, enhances WHO’s legal and accountability frameworks for achieving zero tolerance for sexual misconduct and inaction against it. The umbrella term “sexual misconduct”, as introduced in WHO by the policy, encompasses all forms of prohibited sexual behaviour by the Organization’s staff and collaborators. The policy has been consulted extensively both at the 3 levels of the Organization and with external stakeholders.

To introduce the new policy, a 1-hour learning package is now available on WHO’s free learning platform OpenWHO.org. The policy is intended to ensure that all staff and collaborators are held to a common standard of conduct, and that measures are taken to both prevent and address all forms of sexual misconduct. The course also introduces WHO's 3-year strategy that defines our vision, expected results and the 10 priority actions over the next 3 years.

The course is available in English, with the opportunity to earn a certificate and digital badge if participants score at least 80% on the final assessment. The presentations are available in French for download, and subtitles will be available soon.

Please note this is an interim course. A comprehensive training will be published later this year.

This week, OpenWHO is celebrating 3 United Nations (UN) languages – Chinese, English and Spanish – as we observe their dedicated language days. The purpose of these language days is to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity and promote equal use of all 6 official languages throughout the UN.

• On 20 April, we celebrate Chinese Language Day. You can access OpenWHO's 18 courses in Chinese here.
• On 23 April, we celebrate both English Language Day and Spanish Language Day. OpenWHO offers more than 200 courses in English, available here, and 42 courses in Spanish, available here.

In total, OpenWHO provides free online courses in 68 national and local languages to make learning more accessible to communities across the globe.

New channel for Health Emergency Preparedness, Response and Resilience (HEPR) course series

This new learning channel brings together resources for WHO, national counterparts and partners to outline the process of developing national investment plans to apply for additional resources, including Pandemic Fund resources.

A new course, resulting from a webinar series held by WHO in late March, has been made available to further support eligible countries, regional entities and implementing entities to develop full proposals for potential projects to be supported in this Pandemic Fund funding opportunity window, which is open until 19 May 2023. The recordings are available with subtitles in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

You can access the course here.

New courses on OpenWHO this month

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

WHO's New Policy and Strategy on Preventing and Addressing Sexual Misconduct: This course is an introductory learning package introducing the new WHO policy on preventing and addressing sexual misconduct. This an interim course; a more comprehensive training will be published later this year. The course is available in English and the presentations are available in French for download, with subtitles available soon.

Foresight Approaches in Global Public Health: This course provides an overview of various methods and tools that can be used to understand emerging trends and changes with a futuristic lens and to explore their potential impacts on global public health.

Inequality monitoring in sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH): This course introduces the general steps of inequality monitoring in the context of SRMNCAH. The target audience is primarily people involved in national SRMNCAH monitoring and evaluation efforts, including officers, plus programme managers who have basic knowledge and experience working with SRMNCAH data.

Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT and HEAT Plus): This course provides a practical guide on how to use both HEAT and HEAT Plus to assess inequalities. The target audience is monitoring and evaluation officers, data analysts and other technical officers with an interest in data analysis and reporting.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has a total of 203 courses spread across 68 languages. Three new languages were launched in the last month: Bulgarian, Luo and Nigerian Pidgin. All courses can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language and topic.

Marburg Virus Disease outbreak: Essential knowledge for outbreak response

Following the two simultaneous outbreaks of Marburg virus disease, one in Equatorial Guinea and in Tanzania, OpenWHO expedited the translation of its introductory Marburg course into the national and local languages of the affected regions.

The course is now available in English, French, Luo, Spanish and Swahili.

OpenWHO named 2023 Learning Platform of the Year

OpenWHO has been recognized as the Learning Platform of the Year at the 2023 Learning Awards. The awards are billed as “the highest accolade you can receive in workplace learning and development.”

The platform received recognition in view of its significant reach and impact during its first pandemic test: “We have empowered millions of people across the globe with knowledge to protect themselves and their communities, furthering WHO’s mission and establishing OpenWHO’s role as an effective knowledge-transfer platform for future pandemics,” the submission said.

As of April 2023, the OpenWHO learning platform provides more than 200 self-paced public health courses from WHO experts, including 46 for the COVID-19 pandemic, with a total of 7.6 million enrolments.

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the World Health Organization

On 7 April 2023 - World Health Day - the World Health Organization celebrated its 75th anniversary. 75 years ago, countries of the world came together and founded WHO to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable – so everyone, everywhere can attain the highest level of health and well-being. 

Visit the WHO 75 campaign page to learn more about this anniversary and WHO's work to achieve Health For All.

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

Please save the date for a webinar on 25 April 2023, 13:00-14:15 CET, to launch a Special Issue on Inequality in Immunization, which is newly published in the journal Vaccines.

Register for the webinar here!

Immunization has been an exemplar in global collaborative efforts to advance health and social development. It is also a cornerstone of the world’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals and the imperative of “leaving no one behind.” Notwithstanding critical gains made in improving immunization coverage in the past few decades, recent evidence suggests that inequities persist owing to a complex set of drivers, that are not yet fully understood. Context sensitive pathways and strategies are needed to truly universalize immunization; existing efforts do offer some insights in this regard.

Published in the international MDPI journal Vaccines, this special issue on inequalities and immunization places emphasis on dimensions of inequalities alongside drivers of inequity, while also starting to train the spotlight on pathways towards immunization equity drawing from individual country and globally networked initiatives.

The special issue has been a collaborative effort led by Ahmad Reza Hosseinpoor with Devaki Nambiar of the Department of Data and Analytics (World Health Organization), in collaboration with Carolina Danovaro-Holliday from the Department of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals (World Health Organization), Hope Johnson (Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance), and Aaron Wallace (US Centres for Disease Control).

Aligned with the commemoration of World Immunization Week, the launch of this special issue includes reflection on ‘the Big Catch Up’ (this year’s theme), while also signalling the centrality of equity in meeting our global commitments to universalizing immunization.

The webinar will feature video contributions from authors of the Special issue, insights and reflections from editors, with an open session for questions and answers.

• Learn more about WHO's work on health inequality monitoring
• Access OpenWHO's learning channel for health inequality monitoring

If you would like to receive periodic emails from the WHO Health Inequality Monitoring team about events, resources and training opportunities, please sign up here.

On 7 April 2023 we are observing a milestone World Health Day: 75 years ago, countries of the world came together and founded WHO to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable – so everyone, everywhere can attain the highest level of health and well-being. 

Visit the WHO 75 campaign page to learn more about this anniversary and WHO's work to achieve Health For All.

Learning is critical to Health For All so we also encourage you to spread the word about OpenWHO's 200+ free online courses with your networks. Wishing all our learners a happy World Health Day!

#HealthForAll #WHO75

WHO held a series of webinars in late March to outline the tools countries can use and the approaches they can take to develop Pandemic Fund proposals as part of broader national plans for health emergency preparedness, prevention and response. The full 5-day series is available on OpenWHO with computer-generated subtitles in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, thanks to an expedited production process.

There is an urgent need for coordinated action to build stronger health systems and mobilize additional resources for health emergency preparedness, response and resilience (HEPR). This course will help countries to develop national health emergency investment plans, based on analyses of capacities, risks and vulnerabilities, to mobilize and access new sources of funding and technical support for strengthening HEPR, including from the new Pandemic Fund.

The Pandemic Fund will provide a dedicated stream of additional, long-term financing to strengthen critical HEPR capabilities in low-income and middle-income countries through investments and technical support at the national, regional and global levels.

Fully translated versions of the webinar materials will also be published on the HEPR learning channel in the coming weeks.

We know that learning is easier in your own language – That's why we are proud to have launched our 66th language on the OpenWHO platform.

Our introductory mpox course is now available in Nigerian Pidgin to support the ongoing emergency. With that, OpenWHO courses cover the 20 most-spoken languages across the globe.

Start learning in your language today!

WHO, in collaboration with UNICEF, FAO, World Bank, the Global Fund and GAVI, is holding a series of webinars 27-31 March 2023 between 12:00-14:00 CET each day to outline tools and approaches countries can take to develop Pandemic Fund proposals as part of broader national plans and priorities for health emergency preparedness, readiness and resilience (HEPR).

In order to participate, please register in advance through the following link and you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar: https://who.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_i1lVXQYMQsyfEZikXQ9sbg

You can now access our dedicated OpenWHO space that hosts recordings of the webinars, with new content released daily over 5 days. This online space was created to further support eligible countries, regional entities and implementing entities to develop full proposals for potential projects to be supported in this Pandemic Fund funding opportunity window, which is open until 19 May 2023.

This site is a space for webinar recordings and no certificates are available. This space is listed under the new HEPR learning channel: https://openwho.org/channels/hepr

The theme of World Tuberculosis (TB) Day 2023 is 'Yes! We can end TB!', which aims to inspire hope and encourage high-level leadership, increased investments, faster uptake of new WHO recommendations, adoption of innovations, accelerated action, and multisectoral collaboration to combat the TB epidemic.

As we mark World TB Day on 24 March, we invite you to join OpenWHO's free-of-charge e-courses on the End TB learning channel, featuring multiple topics linked to the implementation of the End TB Strategy. The courses are designed for specific target audiences and can be taken by the learner at their own pace.

The current courses focus on TB preventive treatment, rapid diagnostics for TB detection and drug-resistant TB treatment, amongst other topics. The following 5 additional e-courses are expected to launch in 2023: TB and mental health, screening for TB, national strategic planning for TB, and 2 courses on TB in children and adolescents.

You can learn more about World TB Day 2023 here.

Did you know that about 321 million people around the world speak French? OpenWHO wishes the entire French-speaking community an excellent French Language Day.

Learning in your own language is much easier, that's why OpenWHO, the WHO learning platform, has 79 courses on different public health topics translated into French.

Learn now on OpenWHO!

The World Health Organization’s open-access learning platform OpenWHO.org has issued a call for abstracts to identify how our learning content is used in local, national and regional contexts, and adapted for use outside the platform.

All submissions are due by 15 March 2023. Click here to learn more and submit your 150-250 word abstract.

We are particularly interested in capturing how materials have been used in workforce training and emergencies, as well as in capacity-building contexts, to prepare for or respond to disease outbreaks or health events. Abstracts that are accepted will be invited to be made into posters to be delivered at an online exhibition in July 2023.

The case studies will serve as evidence of OpenWHO use on the ground by health professionals and communities, providing examples beyond what can be captured on the platform and contributing to the body of knowledge on the multiplier effect of open online learning.

On International Women's Day, we celebrate the women learning on our free online learning platform to strengthen public health.

52% of our OpenWHO learners are women, including 60% in key courses like our COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers. You can access all courses here.

This year's International Women's Day theme is DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality. On 8 March, join the push to make the digital world safer, more inclusive and more equitable.

Inequities in sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH) throughout the world mean that certain population subgroups have systematically worse health outcomes and poorer access to services and interventions than others. Addressing inequities in SRMNCAH is central to achieving universal health coverage, protecting human rights, advancing gender equality, combating discrimination and improving the social determinants of health. Making progress in each of these areas is also vital to achieve WHO's Triple Billion targets and accelerate towards the health-related SDGs.

Regular monitoring and review of inequalities in SRMNCAH by stakeholders at regional, national and subnational levels is critical for evidence based decision making. The results of this inequality monitoring can also be used as an input (alongside other forms of knowledge and evidence) to determine where efforts and resources are needed to improve health and well-being for disadvantaged subgroups.

This informational webinar marks the release of a new WHO eLearning course: Inequality Monitoring in Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health. The course introduces learners to a five-step approach to inequality monitoring in the context of SRMNCAH, preparing them to apply these steps across diverse contexts and settings. The two-hour, interactive eLearning course is delivered through OpenWHO.org, which hosts free, self-paced online courses on a variety of health topics.

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Launch event details

Date and time: Thursday 9 March 2023, 13:00-14:00 CET

Register here.

Agenda

Welcome: Stephen Mac Feely, Director, Department of Data and Analytics, WHO

About the eLearning course: Ahmad Reza Hosseinpoor, Lead, Health Inequality Monitoring, Department of Data and Analytics, WHO

Learner endorsements

Open session for questions: Moderated by Devaki Nambiar, Health Inequality Monitoring, Department of Data and Analytics, WHO

Closing remarks: Anshu Banerjee, Director, Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health and Ageing, WHO and Pascale Allotey, Director, Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research, WHO

Links

• Learn more about WHO's work on Health Inequality Monitoring
• Access Health Inequality Monitoring courses on OpenWHO

This course provides an overview of various methods and tools that can be used to understand emerging trends and changes with a futuristic lens and to explore their potential impacts on global public health.

Foresight creates space for thinking about new opportunities and possibilities, taking a longer-term perspective, and articulating current needs and priority actions that can be taken to shape the preferred future scenario.

Click here to join the course.

The target audiences for this course are:

• technical teams and mid- to senior-level professionals responsible for planning, prioritisation and strategy setting;
• WHO staff who plan and manage technical and operational functions; and
• all external stakeholders in global health and life science research who may benefit from the Foresight approaches.

Did you know that OpenWHO was recognized as the Learning Platform of the Year at the 2023 Learning Awards? OpenWHO was named the Gold Winner at a ceremony in London, England, on 16 February 2023. Click here for details.

The theme of this year's International Mother Language Day is “Multilingual education – a necessity to transform education”.

We are proud to offer free online courses in 65 languages to make public health knowledge accessible to as many people as possible.

Celebrate with us on 21 February! Click on the Courses button in the navigation bar and use the language filter to start learning in your language.

OpenWHO was deeply honoured to be recognized as the Learning Platform of the Year at the 2023 Learning Awards. The awards are billed as “the highest accolade you can receive in workplace learning and development.”

WHO's OpenWHO.org learning platform was named the Gold Winner at a ceremony in London, England, on 16 February 2023, after being selected as a Finalist with 7 other learning platforms. Gold is the highest level awarded and has the unanimous vote of all judges.

The award was based on a written submission, presentation and question and answer session before a judging panel, who were looking for “evidence of a platform’s alignment to a clear organisational need, stakeholder buy-in, learner engagement and adoption, and most importantly, impact on performance and what the platform has helped the organisation to achieve.”

The OpenWHO team suggested that the free online learning platform deserved recognition in view of its significant reach and impact during its first pandemic test: “We have empowered millions of people across the globe with knowledge to protect themselves and their communities, furthering WHO’s mission and establishing OpenWHO’s role as an effective knowledge-transfer platform for future pandemics,” the submission said.

As of February 2023, the OpenWHO learning platform provides nearly 200 self-paced public health courses from WHO experts, including 46 for the COVID-19 pandemic. Courses are available across 65 languages, with a total of 7.5 million enrolments.

Call for abstracts: Submit your entries for OpenWHO’s online exhibition

The World Health Organization’s open-access learning platform OpenWHO.org is issuing a call for abstracts to identify how our learning content is used in local, national and regional contexts, and adapted for use outside the platform.

We are particularly interested in capturing how materials have been used in workforce training and emergencies, as well as in capacity-building contexts, to prepare for or respond to disease outbreaks or health events. Abstracts that are accepted will be invited to be made into posters to be delivered at an online exhibition in July 2023.

All submissions are due by 15 March 2023. Click here to learn more and submit your 150-250 word abstract.

New courses on OpenWHO this month

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

Cholera Outbreaks: Emergency Preparedness and Response: This course outlines the objectives of a cholera outbreak response, how to detect and confirm cholera outbreaks and how to effectively organize the response including describing control measures. It also describes steps to take to be better prepared to respond to cholera outbreaks.

EWARS in a box: electronic early warning, alert and response system implementation in emergencies: This course covers all key aspects of establishing EWARS in a box, electronic early warning, alert and system in an emergency setting, providing step-by-step instructions, real-life scenarios and examples facilitating adult learning.

Neglected Tropical Diseases Monitoring and Evaluation Framework: In this course, you will be introduced to the framework for monitoring and evaluating progress against the road map for NTDs 2021-2030 targets, also called the M&E framework.

Latest WHO HIV service delivery and differentiated service delivery for HIV treatment: This webinar-based series aims to disseminate the latest WHO 2021 service delivery and differentiated service delivery recommendations and promote increased knowledge of the newest WHO HIV guidance to ensure all people living with HIV on antiretroviral treatment can access person-centred and high-quality HIV services.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has a total of 201 courses spread across 65 languages. All courses can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language and topic.

New channel on Harmonized Health Facility Assessment

The Harmonized Health Facility Assessment (HHFA) channel includes training courses that prepare country stakeholders for planning and implementing a HHFA, for analysing and interpreting HHFA data, and communicating the findings. Courses are available for various target groups with different functions within the HHFA process.

The following two courses are now available on the channel:

• HHFA: Introduction

• HHFA: Data review, interpretation, and communication

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

The World Health Organization’s open-access learning platform OpenWHO.org is issuing a call for abstracts to identify how our learning content is used in local, national and regional contexts, and adapted for use outside the platform.

We are particularly interested in capturing how materials have been used in workforce training and emergencies, as well as in capacity-building contexts, to prepare for or respond to disease outbreaks or health events. Abstracts that are accepted will be invited to be made into posters to be delivered at an online exhibition in July 2023.

The case studies will serve as evidence of OpenWHO use on the ground by health professionals and communities, providing examples beyond what can be captured on the platform and contributing to the body of knowledge on the multiplier effect of open online learning.

All submissions are due by 15 March 2023. Click here to learn more and submit your 150-250 word abstract.

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are mainly prevalent in tropical areas, where they affect impoverished, underserved communities. They cause devastating health, social and economic consequences.

WHO estimates that more than 1.7 billion people require treatment for at least one NTD every year.

As we mark World NTD Day on 30 January, join one of the 19 courses on our dedicated NTD channel to learn more.

You can help spread the word about these free online courses on social media using the tiles available here.

26 January 2023 marks three years since WHO launched its first OpenWHO.org course on the then-novel coronavirus and started providing accessible, up-to-date and informative health knowledge for a diverse global audience amid the fast-evolving pandemic. As of this date, OpenWHO offers a total of 190 online courses, 46 of which address COVID-19 topics, and has totaled 7.4 million course enrolments.

To adapt to a multilingual world and best serve the affected global population, OpenWHO courses have been produced in a total of 65 languages, with an average of four languages available per course. 15 country-specific learning channels have been developed with WHO Country Offices to provide access in Member States’ official languages. All learning content has been created and vetted by WHO science and expert teams to ensure its scientific accuracy.

To have the widest possible impact and reach learners from remote communities to high-tech metropolises, including in health emergency contexts, OpenWHO has leveraged existing technologies and is offering simple, adaptable and accessible learning content. OpenWHO courses are provided in self-paced, multi-use formats so learners have the option to participate whenever and however works best for them, in line with the universal design for learning framework. Materials are also increasingly optimized for a world in which many rely on mobile phones to stay informed.

Feedback received to date shows positive and encouraging trends. An analysis of two surveys for the platform’s second most popular course – Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) in the context of COVID-19 – confirmed high user satisfaction, with learning needs overwhelmingly met. More than 95% of participants said they would change at least some IPC practices after the course, a majority of whom were women aged 20 to 39 years working in a health-related profession.

In addition, survey results from learners who followed the COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers confirmed the effectiveness of self-paced, multi-use formats from the user perspective, as well as the value of modular and low-bandwidth friendly materials to reduce barriers to access.

Finally, recent feedback indicates that OpenWHO’s learning reach has extended beyond the online platform as communities adapt materials to local contexts and key learners impart the knowledge they gained, creating a multiplier effect.

By harnessing the potential of simple formats and technologies to empower millions of people across the globe with knowledge to protect themselves and their communities, OpenWHO has helped WHO further the goal of supporting everyone, everywhere in attaining the highest level of health. Moving forward, this knowledge-transfer platform will remain an important and effective tool in the preparedness for and response to health emergencies across the globe.

Learning saves lives. That’s why WHO provides more than 190 online courses on public health topics for anyone interested, free of charge.

On 24 January, join us in celebrating International Day of Education by finding an OpenWHO course to help protect your community. Start learning today.

Help spread the word with WHO's LinkedIn post here.

OpenWHO delivers real-time learning for health emergencies across the globe, with a focus on courses for severe emerging diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential.

The platform offers courses on 33 diseases, including all priority disease categories identified under the WHO R&D Blueprint. To develop the priority list, a WHO tool distinguishes which diseases pose the greatest public health risk due to their epidemic potential and/or whether there is no or insufficient countermeasures.

In 2022, OpenWHO responded to 41 outbreaks through learning. The platform also produced courses to strengthen the response to other types of graded emergencies, including the flooding in Pakistan, food insecurity in the Horn of Africa and the conflict in Ukraine. In addition, OpenWHO hosts a suite of core emergency management courses and has refined its production systems to prepare for Disease X, a novel, unknown pathogen with pandemic potential.

On 27 December, commemorate International Day of Epidemic Preparedness by spreading the word about OpenWHO's free online courses with your networks. Learning saves lives – especially in health emergencies.

OpenWHO invites you to celebrate Arabic Language Day on 18 December by enrolling in one of 33 online courses available in Arabic on our free learning platform. The courses cover a variety of topics, including monkeypox, COVID-19, neglected tropical diseases, emergency management and community engagement.

In total, OpenWHO offers courses in 65 national and local languages to make learning accessible to communities across the globe. You can browse them here.

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تدعوك منظمة الصحة العالمية المفتوحة للاحتفال بيوم اللغة العربية في 18 ديسمبر من خلال التسجيل في واحدة من 33 دورة تدريبية عبر الإنترنت متاحة باللغة العربية على منصتنا التعليمية المجانية. تغطي الدورات مجموعة متنوعة من الموضوعات، بما فيها: جدري القردة، فيروس كوفيد-19، أمراض المناطق المدارية المهملة، وإدارة الطوارئ والمشاركة المجتمعية.

في المجمل، تقدم المنصة دورات في 65 لغة وطنية ومحلية لجعل التعلم في متناول المجتمعات في جميع أنحاء العالم. يمكنك الإطلاع عليها هنا.

Millions of people have fled Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict in February.

Refugees and migrants from Ukraine may face challenges that hinder their access to health care in hosting and receiving countries, such as linguistic, financial and cultural barriers, discrimination and social exclusion. They have specific health needs and vulnerabilities requiring culturally sensitive care that recognizes the impact of migration and displacement on their physical and mental health.

As we prepare to mark International Migrants Day on 18 December, OpenWHO invites you to join our course Delivering quality health services to refugees and migrants from Ukraine. The course is designed to support health workers in hosting and receiving countries to provide quality and safe care that is responsive to the circumstances and particular health needs of people from Ukraine seeking health assistance.

Developed by the WHO Health and Migration Programme alongside clinicians providing health services to refugees and migrants, the 30-minute video course features 6 case studies that reflect the common health problems of conflict-affected populations fleeing Ukraine. Access the course here.

At least half of the people in the world do not receive the health services they need. About 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty each year because of out-of-pocket spending on health. This must change.

On 12 December, celebrate Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day by joining a course on our dedicated UHC learning channel. The courses address a range of topics – from health systems resilience, to vaccine safety, to oral health – that support WHO’s target of 1 billion more people benefitting from UHC.

UHC means that all people have access to the health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship. Learn more about UHC Day 2022 on the WHO website.

New channel on Chemical and Biological Deliberate Events

As the United Nations’ public health agency, WHO has an important role to play in the global public health response to events involving the possible deliberate use of biological and chemical hazards against a human population.

The Chemical and Biological Deliberate Events (CBDE) channel hosts online training to provide basic knowledge for managing the consequences of a CBDE. A series of 3 courses is available:

• CBDE Awareness: Recognizing Signs of Deliberate Release of Chemical or Biological Agents
• CBDE: Preparedness for Health First Responders
• CBDE: Preparedness for Public Health Professionals

You’re invited: Webinar introducing new EWARS-in-a-box online training course

On 12 December, please join WHO experts for a webinar introducing a new EWARS-in-a-box online training course on OpenWHO. During the session, you will hear about the importance of online training for emergency response, especially on early warning tools like EWARS in a box.

The free event will be held from 14:00 – 15:00 CET and is open to anyone interested.

Register for the webinar here.

New page with key learning resources for Pakistan floods emergency

OpenWHO launched a dedicated page with key learning resources for the Pakistan crisis. This page hosts a series of general courses on infectious diseases and emergency management that may be helpful in the context of a flood emergency. Some of the learning resources are also available in national languages such as Pashto and Urdu.

New courses and languages

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

Introduction to Nipah virus disease: This course introduces Nipah virus disease and outlines the signs, symptoms, diagnosis, transmission routes and epidemiology of the disease. It also discusses prevention and control strategies.

For a healthier world: safely managed sanitation: This course, part of WHO’s efforts to support capacity building globally, unpacks the health rationale for safely managed sanitation (SMS) and how programming approaches need to adapt to improve health outcomes.

WHO Good Reliance Practices: The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to WHO Good Reliance Practices (GRelP) and to advocate for the use of reliance in the regulatory oversight of medical products.

Monitoring methodologies for diet-related regulatory interventions to support a healthy food environment: This course provides guidance on how to effectively develop, implement and improve methods and systems for monitoring and enforcing food industry compliance, with particular reference to three key types of food regulations: labelling, reformulation and regulations on marketing of food and non-alcoholic beverages to children.

Measles and rubella outbreak preparedness and response in South East Asia Region: This course aims to support programme managers and outbreak response teams with outbreak preparedness, response and recovery in countries that have targeted measles and rubella elimination.

Antimicrobial resistance and infection prevention and control: In this course, you will learn about what antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is and how resistant infections occur, which pathogens cause the biggest problems globally and in the health care setting, the risk factors and causes of AMR and, most importantly, the role of IPC in reducing AMR.

Bloodstream infections: In this course, you will learn about case definitions of bloodstream infections (BSI) due to catheter use, their epidemiology and the risk factors for acquiring BSIs.

Outbreak Investigations in health facilities: In this course, you will learn how to identify a health care-associated infection (HAI) outbreak in your facility and what to do after a HAI outbreak is identified.

New translations

The following 13 translations have been launched this month:

• Hand hygiene in Georgian
• Mpox epidemiology, preparedness and response for African outbreak contexts in Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese and Russian
• Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever introduction in Kazakh
• Occupational health and safety in Kazakh
• Cholera introduction in Urdu
• Measles outbreak in Spanish
• Marburg introduction in French
• Vaccine safety basics in Ukrainian
• Role of personal protective equipment in Armenian
• Waste management in Ukrainian

Updates to course content

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

• Social prescribing in English

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has a total of 190 courses spread across 65 languages. All courses can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language and topic. You can also access our catalogues which show all courses and languages available here.

Monthly newsletter

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

Another year of serving the world with free online learning for public health is coming to a close, and it would not have been possible without all of you. Thank you for being a part of the OpenWHO learning community. As we enter 2023, we will continue to work to provide you with the latest health knowledge to save lives, reduce disease transmission and protect the vulnerable.

Wishing you all a safe, healthy and happy new year.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionally affected people living with disabilities, highlighting the need for disability-inclusive COVID-19 response.

On 3 December, OpenWHO will join the global community in commemorating International Day of Persons with Disabilities under this year's theme: Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fuelling an accessible and equitable world.

OpenWHO is dedicated to tailoring its learning approaches to meet the needs of people living with disabilities. By doing so, OpenWHO helps make health information accessible across different communities, promoting equity in learning for health emergencies.

Learn more about the approaches OpenWHO has introduced in our recent article in WHO's Monthly Operational Update on COVID-19, available on p.16.

As the United Nations’ public health agency, WHO has an important role to play in the global public health response to events involving the possible deliberate use of biological and chemical hazards against a human population.

OpenWHO has launched a new Chemical and Biological Deliberate Events (CBDE) channel that hosts online training to provide basic knowledge for managing the consequences of a CBDE. General awareness is needed to better understand, prepare, detect and respond to deliberate events. Health care professionals will be among the key personnel responding to CBDEs, which will place exceptional strain on the health sector, so it is vital that public health personnel have a basic understanding of how to manage an effective response.

The channel hosts a series of 3 courses:

• CBDE Awareness: Recognizing Signs of Deliberate Release of Chemical or Biological Agents: This course aims to ensure that all participants recognize possible deliberate events with chemical or biological agents and know the different response types this will require compared to other emergencies.
• CBDE: Preparedness for Health First Responders: This course aims to provide health professionals with basic training on managing and responding to a CBDE by looking at it from a health first-responder angle.
• CBDE: Preparedness for Public Health Professionals: This course aims to provide public health professionals worldwide with basic knowledge for preparing for and organizing the management of the consequences of a CBDE.

Participants in each course have the opportunity to earn certificates for both completion and achievement.

Safe sanitation systems are fundamental to protect public health. WHO supports capacity building and implementation through guidelines and tools on sanitation and health, safe use of wastewater and safe recreational water environments, using risk assessment to identify, prioritize, manage and monitor coordinated action to protect public health.

However, the world is alarmingly off-track to deliver Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 6.2, where Member States committed to achieve universal access to safe sanitation for everyone, everywhere by 2030. In fact, the rate at which sanitation coverage is increasing will need to quadruple globally if the world is to achieve the SDG sanitation targets.

To eliminate inequalities, progress must move 4 times faster in rural areas globally, 5 times faster in urban areas globally, 9 times faster in fragile contexts and 15 times faster in least developed countries. Overall, at current rates of progress, only 67% will have safe sanitation services, leaving 2.8 billion without by 2030. Without universal access, the world will not claim the myriad health, environmental and socio-economic benefits that come from safely managed sanitation.

As part of WHO’s efforts to support capacity building globally, OpenWHO has launched a new course that unpacks the health rationale for safely managed sanitation (SMS) and how programming approaches need to adapt to improve health outcomes. A safely managed sanitation service chain – from toilets, to containment, to transport, treatment, and finally safe use or disposal of wastewater and faecal by-products – is essential to protecting the health of individuals and communities and the environment.

The course also describes SDG 6.2 monitoring definitions for SMS and how that can be adapted and contextualized into national definitions and embedded in national level instruments for implementation and monitoring. Finally, it presents tools to assess status and monitor implementation of definitions at national and local level -- all to help governments, and the development agencies, civil society partners and others working with them, to achieve safely managed sanitation for their populations.

The course will take approximately 3 hours to complete and participants have the opportunity to earn certificates and digital badges to share their achievements. Access the course here and start learning today.

Sexual violence and intimate partner violence can be especially problematic in complex emergencies and natural disasters. In these situations, civilian women and children are often targets of abuse, exploitation and violence because of their sex, age, and status in society.

As we mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25 November, OpenWHO invites you to join our 5-course series that provides detailed guidance on the clinical management of survivors of rape and intimate partner violence. The series is intended for qualified healthcare workers providing services to survivors of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian emergencies. It considers available resources, materials, drugs, and national policies and procedures.

The 5 courses are available on our learning channel for preventing and responding to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (PRSEAH) as follows:

1. Introduction to the clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
2. Mental health and psychosocial support: Clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
3. Management of intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
4. First-line support: Clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
5. Clinical management of rape

Each course will take approximately 1 hour to complete. The series is being translated into Arabic and French for additional reach.

Learn more about International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women here.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections. It occurs when microorganisms develop resistance to medicines that are relied upon for treatment, making some conditions difficult or impossible to cure. As a result, infections persist in the body, increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

From 18-24 November, OpenWHO invites you to observe World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) by joining any the following free courses on our AMR learning channel to help improve awareness and understanding of AMR and encourage best practices:

• 6 steps for sustainable implementation of national action plans on antimicrobial resistance
• WHO costing and budgeting tool for national action plans on antimicrobial resistance
• Antimicrobial stewardship programmes in health-care facilities in low- and middle-income countries: a WHO practical toolkit
• WHO Policy Guidance on Integrated Antimicrobial Stewardship Activities
• Reducing antimicrobial resistance of treatable sexually transmitted infections in antenatal care
• Antimicrobial Stewardship: A competency-based approach (available in 6 languages)

Learning saves lives. Help us spread the word about these important courses in line with this year's WAAW theme – “Preventing Antimicrobial Resistance Together”. You can learn more about WAAW here.

A majority of emerging diseases are shared by humans and animals, so adopting a One Health approach is essential. This approach is necessary to effectively prevent, detect and respond to health challenges that arise at the interface between humans, animals and the environment.

On 3 November, celebrate One Health Day by enrolling in one of the free online courses hosted on our One Health for Global Health Security learning channel. The channel provides learning resources for technical staff, decision-makers and the general public, supporting them to operationalize a One Health approach through tools, principles and best practices.

The following courses are currently available, with more to come:

• Strengthening collaboration between human and animal health sectors for improved health security
• The Joint Risk Assessment (JRA OT): A Training for Implementers
• Navigating the Tripartite Zoonoses Guide (TZG): A training for advocates and implementers

OpenWHO is excited to share that we have been selected as a Finalist in the Learning Platform of Year category of the 2023 Learning Awards.

According to the Learning Awards team, "our independent judges hand-pick only a few Finalists from many hundreds of entries worldwide, so to make the shortlist is a phenomenal achievement."

OpenWHO will present the learning platform to a panel of judges in November. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in London, United Kingdom, on 16 February 2023.

Polio is a virus that spreads from person-to-person with the ability to cause paralysis. As we mark World Polio Day on 24 October, we invite you to join our free online course to learn more about poliovirus, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) partnership, and our core response strategies and the remaining challenges to eradication.

In 1988, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to eradicate polio. At the time, there were 125 endemic countries. Currently wild poliovirus remains in only two countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The 1-hour training is aimed at all current and new polio staff and anyone interested in learning more about polio eradication. It utilizes short videos and quizzes to introduce the material and test your understanding, and provides the opportunity to earn a certificate and digital badge to share your achievement.

The course is currently available in English and French. Start learning today.

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

On World Food Day 2022, we are focusing on building a sustainable world where everyone, everywhere has regular access to enough nutritious food.

OpenWHO provides a 30-minute course that introduces the basic concept of food insecurity and reviews the impact and implications of food crises on health, health systems and programming. The course also describes the structure and content of the Food Insecurity and Health Readiness and Response Strategic Framework and its 5 strategic domains – coordination and collaboration, surveillance and information, outbreak prevention and control, essential nutrition actions and health service actions – to support its use and operationalization of country-specific planning.

Celebrate World Food Day on 16 October by enrolling in the course, now available in English and French.

As we mark International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, OpenWHO is launching a new online course for urban leaders, planners and practitioners on transitioning to complex risk management and resilient urban futures.

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a serious challenge to cities, exacerbating vulnerabilities and having a tremendous impact on urban health and well-being. The pandemic reveals the new reality: cities are living with uncertainties and facing much more complex risks. To build more resilient and sustainable urban futures, cities need to evolve to reflect the interconnectedness of people, the planet and prosperity, and need to transition to systematic risk governance with an enhanced understanding of risks.

The new course was jointly developed by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Global Education and Training Institute (UNDRR GETI), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and WHO headquarters. Based on a virtual training programme that was held from August to September 2022, the modules aim to:

• increase the understanding and capacities to manage complex and systematic disaster risks, and enhance public health emergency response preparedness and South-South cooperation;
• better prepare city stakeholders for transitioning to living with the COVID-19 pandemic, fostering collective collaboration and better preparing cities for future crises, especially health emergencies and uncertainties; and
• facilitate city-to-city partnerships in South-South and triangular cooperation towards sustainable development.

The course will take approximately 4.5 hours to complete and participants have the opportunity to earn certificates and digital badges to share their achievements. Join the course here.

New course series on the clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings

Sexual violence and intimate partner violence can be especially problematic in complex emergencies and natural disasters. In these situations, women and children are often targets of abuse, exploitation, and violence because of their sex, age and status in society. This five-course series is intended for healthcare workers providing services to survivors of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings. For a better learning experience, we recommend accessing the courses in the order listed below:

1. Introduction to the clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
2. Mental health and psychosocial support: Clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
3. Management of intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
4. First-line support: Clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
5. Clinical management of rape

New course on delivering quality health services to refugees and migrants from Ukraine

OpenWHO launched a course on delivering quality health services to refugees and migrants from Ukraine, the first WHO course in video format to support health workers in hosting and receiving countries to provide quality and safe care that is responsive to the circumstances and particular health needs of people from Ukraine seeking health assistance.

Try out our new interactive features in our new course on Chemical and Biological Deliberate events

The course CBDE Awareness: Recognizing Signs of Deliberate Release of Chemical or Biological Agents aims to ensure that emergency responders recognize possible deliberate events with chemical or biological agents and know the different response types this will require compared to other emergencies. You will have the opportunity to explore interactive videos and exercises, with pop-up texts and knowledge checks across the course modules. A new OpenWHO learning experience is at your fingertips!

New courses and languages

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

• Buruli ulcer: training of health workers at national and district levels on skin Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs): This course is intended to provide basic information for front line health workers to be able to implement the recommended control measures to minimize the negative impact of Buruli ulcer on populations.

• Neglected tropical diseases: road map and sustainability framework 2021-2030: OpenWHO courses: The learning package comprises two online courses that aim to give participants a comprehensive overview of the overriding strategic goals and key challenges that NTD professionals and programmes are likely to face over the coming decade: 1) NTD road map strategy; and 2) the Sustainability Framework.

• One Health in action against Neglected Tropical Diseases: This course provides practical ideas, tools and examples to enable each of us to take One Health action towards the global goal of substantially reducing the burden of NTDs by 2030

• WHO costing and budgeting tool for national action plans on antimicrobial resistance: The aim of this course is to introduce the WHO costing and budgeting tool for national action plans on antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The tool is designed to support operationalization and to accelerate implementation of national action plans on AMR.

• 6 steps for sustainable implementation of national action plans on antimicrobial resistance: This course covers the 6 steps for sustainable implementation of national action plans on AMR from the “WHO implementation handbook for national action plans on antimicrobial resistance: guidance for the human health sector”.

• Health inequality monitoring foundations courses: This 5- course series addresses the need for capacity strengthening in health inequality monitoring, with courses organized according to the following topics: an overview of terminology and concepts, data sources, health disaggregation, summary measures of health inequality and reporting.

New translations

The following 7 translations have been launched this month:

• Introduction to Monkeypox in Arabic
• Waste management in Georgian
• Mental health and psychosocial support in Spanish
• Ready4Response Tier 1 in Arabic
• Ready4Response Tier 2 in Arabic
• Empowering communities during outbreaks in Chinese and Arabic

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 French: Videos and resources for the Pfizer-BioNTech, Janssen, Covaxin and Novavax COVID-19 vaccines have been updated.
• Waste management in English.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has 46 courses on COVID-19, with a total of 177 courses spread across 65 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.

Emergency management courses accredited for Continuing Professional Development

Four OpenWHO courses have received Continuing Professional Development (CPD) accreditation, certifying that they have been independently assessed and approved for personal and professional development: Ready4Response Tier 1 and Tier 2, the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre and Health Cluster Coordination. Certificates from officially verified CPD courses indicate to learners and professional bodies that the learning value has been scrutinized to ensure both integrity and quality.

New countries 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. Armenia and Poland are the most recent additions 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.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

10 October is World Mental Health Day, which provides us with an opportunity to re-kindle our efforts to protect and improve mental health, including in emergencies.

OpenWHO offers an online orientation course 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 focus of this course is on how to apply existing practical, evidence-based, scalable tools and practice-led approaches for successful implementation of projects to strengthen MHPSS in emergencies operations, protection from mental health and psychosocial consequences of crises and towards the realization of universal mental health coverage.

Through this training, you will learn about key approaches to advocacy and to identify entry points for mental health and psychosocial integration as an integral and cross-cutting component in public health emergency responses and in humanitarian emergencies. The training will also emphasize a focus on early recovery, highlighting WHO’s past successes in building back better.

The course will take approximately 7 hours to complete, with the opportunity to earn a certificate and digital badge to share your achievement.

The training is currently available in 4 languages, which you can access below:

• English
• Español (Spanish)
• Polski (Polish)
• Українська (Ukrainian)

Since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis on 24 February 2022, millions of people have fled Ukraine, crossing borders into neighbouring countries.

Refugees and migrants from Ukraine may face challenges that hinder their access to health care in hosting and receiving countries, such as linguistic, financial and cultural barriers, discrimination and social exclusion. They have specific health needs and vulnerabilities requiring culturally sensitive care that recognizes the impact of migration and displacement on their physical and mental health.

Today, WHO published Delivering quality health services to refugees and migrants from Ukraine, the first WHO course in video format to support health workers in hosting and receiving countries to provide quality and safe care that is responsive to the circumstances and particular health needs of people from Ukraine seeking health assistance.

Developed by the WHO Health and Migration Programme alongside clinicians providing health services to refugees and migrants, the 30-minute video course features six case studies that reflect the common health problems of conflict-affected populations fleeing Ukraine.

• Access the course here.
• Read the news release here.

As we mark International Translation Day on 30 September, OpenWHO is proud to offer free online public health courses in 65 different languages so that more communities can access and easily understand life-saving public health information.

Learning is easier in your own language. OpenWHO courses are translated into as many languages as possible to enhance learning uptake and retention, and advance equity in access to public health knowledge.

Languages available on our platform include 19 of the 20 most spoken languages worldwide, as well as the official languages of 44 of the 46 least-developed countries.

In total, 19.7 million words have been translated to empower people with knowledge to protect their health and the health of their communities.

Celebrate International Translation Day by learning in your language on OpenWHO!

Despite being fully preventable, dog-mediated human rabies kills tens of thousands of people every year, especially in rural and impoverished areas in Africa and Asia.

On World Rabies Day 2022, learn about rabies and the One Health approach currently taken to prevent it by enrolling in our free online course.

This course 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. The learning package consists of 7 modules, which include downloadable video-lectures by global experts and professionals confronted with rabies in the field.

The course is available in English, French and Russian and will take approximately 3 hours to complete. You will have the opportunity to earn a course certificate and a digital badge to share your achievement on social media. Start learning today!

OpenWHO is continuing to expand its Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) learning channel, recently adding courses on how to apply One Health action to NTDs and presenting the flagship NTD road map strategy document and accompanying sustainability framework.

All 3 courses are self-paced and open to anyone interested, with the opportunity to earn course certificates and digital badges:

• One Health in action against NTDs
• Road map for NTDs 2021–2030
• Sustainability framework for action against NTDs 2021–2030

Learn more about why the road map and sustainability framework courses were developed in this WHO news post. The One Health course was also featured on the WHO website earlier this month.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, OpenWHO made our “Introduction to COVID-19” learning materials available in Indian sign language to help meet the needs of learners in one of the world’s most populous countries and beyond.

Today the course hosts 55 000 learners across 150 countries, with 88.1% of learners located in India, and other key learning communities situated in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Half of the learners are students (33.3%), health professionals (9.6%) or personnel of non-governmental organizations (8.4%).

Of the 65 languages available on the OpenWHO learning platform, Indian sign language is the 7th most popular overall.

On 23 September, celebrate International Day of Sign Languages by spreading the word about these important resources and raising awareness of the importance of sign language in the full realization of the human rights of people who are deaf. Learn more about the international day here.

On 17 September, OpenWHO invites you to observe World Patient Safety Day by expanding your knowledge in one of our free online courses. This year's theme is medication safety, in recognition that medication harm accounts for 50% of the overall preventable harm in medical care.

OpenWHO courses related to medication safety include:

• Safety in administering medicines for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs): Safety is a primary concern for NTD programmes. For example, medicines that are donated for treatment are manufactured under stringent regulatory authority guidelines or are prequalified by WHO, with considerable effort in determining safety for mass treatment and in conducting surveillance for serious adverse events. These training modules are intended to help national programmes for NTDs plan, prepare and monitor the safe administration of medicines for treatment of these diseases.

• Antimicrobial Stewardship: A competency-based approach: This course will equip clinicians who frequently prescribe antimicrobials with knowledge and tools to improve their use of these essential medications in daily clinical practice. Through case based examples, the course will highlight how antimicrobial stewardship principles can be applied to common clinical scenarios.

• Standard precautions: Injection safety and needle-stick injury management: In this course, you will learn about the causes of unsafe injection practices, how to safely give injections, and how to safely dispose of needles and other sharps. You will also learn what to do when needle-stick injuries occur, how to manage potential exposures, and ways to protect yourself, the staff and patients in your facility, and your community.

You can view OpenWHO's full offering of courses on 169 health topics here.

Register here for a webinar about the new "Health Inequality Monitoring Foundations" course series on the Health Inequality Monitoring channel of OpenWHO:

When: 14 September 2022, 13:00-14:00 CET

WHO is committed to advancing health equity around the globe. Yet, in 2020, only half of countries included disaggregated data as part of their published national health statistics reports. Health inequality monitoring provides critical evidence to determine who is being left behind, and inform equity-oriented changes to policies, programmes and practices.

A new WHO eLearning course series, "Health Inequality Monitoring Foundations", addresses the need for capacity strengthening in health inequality monitoring. This 5-course series is delivered in a self-directed learning environment, designed to meet the immediate learning needs of users. It is primarily targeted to monitoring and evaluation officers, researchers, analysts, and others with a general interest in health data and inequality monitoring.

• The Overview course gives a general introduction to the health inequality monitoring cycle and related key terminology and concepts.

• The Data sources course examines the strengths, limitations and opportunities to improve common data sources for health inequality monitoring, as well as the processes of data source mapping and data linking.

• The Health data disaggregation course explores how disaggregated health data are integral across the steps of monitoring, and guides learners in assessing and reporting disaggregated data.

• The Summary measures of health inequality course discusses the general characteristics of simple and complex summary measures, and guides learners through the selection, calculation, interpretation and reporting of a range of measures.

• The Reporting course demonstrates the components of high-quality health inequality reporting, emphasizing purpose-driven, audience-centred and technically rigorous approaches.

Each course will take approximately 1.5 hours to complete and can be completed at your own pace, all at once or in several sittings. You will have the opportunity to earn a course certificate and digital badge to share your achievement on social media for all 5 courses in the series.

Additional courses are available on the Health Inequality Monitoring channel, which was recently highlighted as a tool for capacity strengthening in the International Journal for Equity in Health:

"The courses on the Health Inequality Monitoring channel demonstrate how technical information can be simplified and presented to broad audiences in a manner that is highly accessible to learners. The Health Inequality Monitoring channel on OpenWHO is an innovative and necessary addition to existing tools and resources to support the advancement of health equity."

You can read the full publication here.

As health threats continue to challenge communities across the globe, WHO is taking steps to ensure high-quality training in emergency management is available to keep people safer in these crises.

6 WHO emergency management courses have achieved Continuing Professional Development (CPD) accreditation, certifying that they have been independently assessed and approved for personal and professional development. Certificates from officially verified CPD courses indicate to learners and professional bodies that the learning value has been scrutinized to ensure both integrity and quality. The accredited training includes 2 blended courses that use a mix of online, peer and face-to-face learning methods and 4 open online courses hosted on OpenWHO.org.

The 2 blended courses make up the 2 “phases” of the Leadership in Emergencies programme, which helps WHO and Ministry of Health staff develop key leadership skills to fulfil Team Lead, Health Cluster Coordinator and Incident Manager roles in health emergencies. Initially organized in-person, the Leadership in Emergencies courses were digitalized when in-person learning was disrupted by the pandemic.

Phase 1 is an 8-week course of online classes and group work focused on developing leadership skills. Phase 2 provides concentrated and specialist training on the use of transversal skills in an emergency setting using a mix of online classes and a workshop. To date, 165 participants have attended the Phase 1 course, while 48 have attended Phase 2.

“Leadership skills are essential for health emergency response” said Andrew Black, the WHO Technical Officer who manages the Leadership programme. “We are thrilled that these courses have been accredited for Continuing Professional Development, bringing renewed credibility and benefit for learners in this critical training.”

Open online learning

The other 4 accredited courses are available in self-paced formats for anyone interested on WHO’s free online learning platform OpenWHO.org.

The Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) course, available in 9 languages, is aimed at health emergency preparedness and response professionals, policy makers and partners seeking to implement and sustain PHEOCs. A PHEOC is a physical location for the coordination of information and resources to support incident management activities.

The Health Cluster coordination course developed by the Global Health Cluster also received its accreditation. Health Clusters exist to relieve suffering and save lives in humanitarian emergencies, while advancing the well-being and dignity of affected populations. This course was designed to increase the skills and knowledge of Health Cluster teams and partners and to strengthen the efficiency and accountability of all stakeholders in responding to humanitarian crises.

The Ready4Response course series, which serves as a foundation for the Leadership in Emergencies programme, was certified earlier this year. The multi-tiered core curriculum aims to develop consistent learning standards across the emergency response workforces at national level and equips participants with essential competencies needed to work within public health emergency response. The Tier 1 course focuses on the response context and principles, while Tier 2 addresses systems, structures and skills.

Achieving these 6 accreditations further advances the WHO Health Emergencies Programme’s goal of improving health emergency response in all contexts by providing the highest quality learning content to global learners.