News
21st May 2024
Rapid Response Mobile Labs (RRMLs) help boost mobile diagnostic capacities in public health emergencies and can bring critical laboratory resources to the doorstep of affected and vulnerable communities during outbreaks, who are often in hard-to-reach remote areas.
The RRML Network – a community of practice of lab specialists and experts created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) – recently set about creating, testing and refining a common set of RRML Minimum Operational Standards. The standards aim to ensure a consistent, high quality and interoperable response between different RRML teams based across the world, who may be jointly deployed to respond to outbreaks.
As a part of the RRML Network, the UK-Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) took part in the first ever Interregional Field Simulation Exercise (IFX): a three-part exercise to review and test the proposed minimum standards across the whole RRML life cycle, from pre-deployment, during outbreak response and end-of-mission phases. The exercise also tested how RRMLs work alongside other WHO health emergency workforce assets, such as Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs), just as in a real outbreak.
Read the highlights, challenges and learnings from the three-part exercise.
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
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.
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 version. This 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.
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.
