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Pandemics: Emergence, Spread and Response

Online Short Course  London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Gain the knowledge and skills that are critical to working in the field of pandemics. This master’s level online course is developed by the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) and offers a focused perspective and approach to learning about pandemics. The course will outline the specific drivers, multi-disciplinary actors and response measures, and facilitate the critical appraisal of pandemic preparedness, response and research in different contexts. This course is currently closed but you can register interest here

Blog: UK-PHRST attends CPHIA Conference 2023: Repositioning Africa in the global health architecture

19th December 2023

In November, UK-PHRST members attended the 2023 International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA) in Lusaka Zambia.They launched a Global Health Diplomacy course which was developed with Africa CDC, discussed how best to respond to infectious disease outbreaks and strengthened our partnership with Africa CDC to support mental health across the continent.

The annual conference provides a unique African-led platform for leaders across the continent to reflect on lessons learned in health and science, and create more resilient health systems. This year’s conference was attended by thousands of delegates from across Africa and international partners.

Read more about CPHIA and post your comments

Blog: Learning Review 2022: The importance of partnerships and mutual learning to the UK-PHRST

9th October 2023

Reflective report showcases the importance of partnerships and mutual learning to the UK-PHRST’s mission and highlights areas of further improvement.

The UK-PHRST and its international partners came together to review their previous work, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses as part of a three-day Learning Review Session in Cape Town, South Africa. The discussions, in September 2022, acknowledged the ongoing success and enthusiasm for the UK-PHRST’s partnership working approach and also pointed to key issues that potentially affect the work of the UK-PHRST and international partners. These included strengthening public health leadership, narrowing the North-South technological gap, ensuring deployments create impact for host countries and embedding greater levels of equity across all working relationships.

The newly published UK-PHRST and Partners Learning Review Post Review Reflections & Actions Report highlights case studies from the discussions, and provides 35 recommendations for improved ways of working. The UK-PHRST senior leadership responded to 20 of the recommendations which the attendees felt were priority areas.

Read more about this report and post your comments.

Blog: New briefing paper flags priority research questions to improve cleaning practices in resource-limited hospital settings

 8th June 2023

This briefing paper by the CLEAN research group, first convened in mid-2022 as part of a UK-PHRST project, sets out 12 priority research questions to improve cleaning practices in resource-limited healthcare settings and help prevent infections and antimicrobial resistance among staff and patients. The research questions span cleaning standards, health system-related questions, behaviour change and innovation.

It also highlights the challenges facing resource-limited settings and factors that need to be considered to support the implementation of tailored and effective cleaning practices. For example, the experts recommend viewing cleaners as a key part of health systems and including them in the design of new hospital cleaning programmes. 

Read more about this briefing paper and post your comments.

Framework for the development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in response to disease outbreaks

This framework has been developed to share learning from the UK-PHRST's development of a massive open online course (MOOC) entitled “COVID-19: Tackling the Novel Coronavirus”. It details a stepwise approach to the development and delivery of a MOOC in the context of a disease outbreak and includes links to useful tools and templates.

The Epidemiologist R Handbook

This handbook strives to: serve as a quick R code reference manual; provide task-centered examples addressing common epidemiological problems; assist epidemiologists transitioning to R; and be accessible in settings with low internet-connectivity via an offline versionThis handbook is produced by a collaboration of epidemiologists from around the world drawing upon experience with organizations including local, state, provincial, and national health agencies, the World Health Organization (WHO), Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors without Borders (MSF), hospital systems, and academic institutions.