Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) training: Online training
Standard precautions: Waste management
According to WHO, about 85% of the total amount of waste generated by health care activities is general, non-hazardous waste. The remaining 15% is considered hazardous material that could be infectious, toxic or radioactive. Hazardous waste that is not managed properly presents a risk to hospital patients, health care personnel and the general public.
Standard precautions: Hand hygiene
Most health care-associated infections are preventable through good hand hygiene – cleaning hands at the right times and in the right way. The WHO Guidelines on hand hygiene in health care support hand hygiene promotion and improvement in health care facilities worldwide and are complemented by the WHO multimodal hand hygiene improvement strategy, the guide to implementation, and implementation toolkit, which contain many ready-to-use practical tools. This module has been prepared to help summarize the WHO guidelines on hand hygiene, associated tools and ideas for effective implementation.
Introduction to Go.Data – Field data collection, chains of transmission and contact follow-up
Go.Data is a field data collection platform focusing on case data (including lab, hospitalization and other variables though case investigation form) and contact data (including contact follow-up). This briefing package provides an orientation to the purpose, benefits and utilization of Go.Data, consisting of 7 modules with a narrated walkthrough of the key features of the Go.Data web-based platform and mobile application.
COVID-19: How to put on and remove personal protective equipment
This is a guide for healthcare workers involved in patient care activities in a healthcare setting. It aims to show the type of personal protective equipment or PPE needed to correctly protect oneself. Based on the current available evidence, the WHO recommended PPE for the care of COVID patients are CONTACT and DROPLET precautions, with the exception of aerosol producing procedures, which require CONTACT and AIRBORNE (hence, a respirator mask such as N95, FFP2, FFP3). Keeping in mind, PPE is part of a larger infection prevention and control bundle of measures and should be implemented as part of a multimodal strategy of management of COVID-19 patients. Only clinical staff who are trained and competent in the use of PPE should be allowed to enter the patient’s room.
Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) Treatment Facility Design
Screening areas, treatment centres and community facilities are part of the strategic priorities for Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) outbreak preparedness, readiness and response. The SARI Facilities training package has been developed to meet the operational needs emerging with the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides a thorough understanding of the principles driving the design process of COVID-19 screening areas for health care facilities, community facilities and SARI treatment centres, including how to repurpose an existing building into a SARI treatment centre.
COVID-19: Operational Planning Guidelines and COVID-19 Partners Platform to support country preparedness and response
In order to assist UN country teams in scaling up country preparedness and response to COVID-19, WHO has developed these learning modules as a companion to the Operational Planning Guidelines to Support Country Preparedness and Response.
The training is intended:
- For UN country teams (UNCTs)
- For other relevant stakeholders, including partners, donors and civil society
- To support national readiness and preparedness for COVID-19
- To help countries increase their capacity to respond to COVID-19
- To increase international coordination for response and preparedness
- To streamline the process of coordinating resources and assessing country preparedness level
This learning package consists of 3 modules with videos and downloadable presentations.
Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) for novel coronavirus (COVID-19)
This course provides information on what facilities should be doing to be prepared to respond to a case of an emerging respiratory virus such as the novel coronavirus, how to identify a case once it occurs, and how to properly implement IPC measures to ensure there is no further transmission to HCW or to other patients and others in the healthcare facility.
This training is intended for healthcare workers and public health professionals, as it is focused on infection prevention and control.
Introduction to emerging respiratory viruses, including novel coronavirus
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are known to cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
A novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was identified in 2019 in Wuhan, China. This is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified in humans.
This course provides a general introduction to COVID-19 and emerging respiratory viruses and is intended for public health professionals, incident managers and personnel working for the United Nations, international organizations and NGOs.
Clinical Care Severe Acute Respiratory Infection
This course includes content on clinical management of patients with a severe acute respiratory infection.
It is intended for clinicians who are working in intensive care units (ICUs) in low and middle-income countries and managing adult and pediatric patients with severe forms of acute respiratory infection (SARI), including severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis and septic shock. It is a hands-on practical guide to be used by health care professionals involved in clinical care management during outbreaks of influenza virus (seasonal) human infection due avian influenza virus (H5N1, H7N9), MERS-CoV, COVID-19 or other emerging respiratory viral epidemics.
WHO-ICRC Basic Emergency Care: approach to the acutely ill and injured
Developed by WHO and ICRC, in collaboration with the International Federation for Emergency Medicine, Basic Emergency Care (BEC): Approach to the acutely ill and injured is an open-access training course for frontline healthcare providers who manage acute illness and injury with limited resources, focused on presentations of difficulty in breathing, shock, and altered mental status. Produced in response to requests from multiple countries and international partners, the BEC package includes a Participant Workbook and electronic slide decks for each module. Integrating the guidance from WHO Emergency Triage, Assessment and Treatment (ETAT) for children and the Integrated Management of Adult/Adolescent Illness (IMAI), BEC teaches a systematic approach to the initial assessment and management of time-sensitive conditions where early intervention saves lives. Available in English and Spanish.
WHO Medical Emergency Checklist
The WHO Medical Emergency Checklist is a modified version of the WHO Trauma Care Checklist designed for use in emergency units for patients with acute conditions such as severe difficulty in breathing. It reviews actions at two critical points to ensure that no life threatening conditions are missed and that timely, life-saving interventions are performed.
The adaptation of this checklist for medical emergency care was led by an expert group from the WHO global emergency care systems network. The WHO Medical Emergency Checklist is appropriate in any setting delivering emergency care, and can be easily adapted to local needs.
Resuscitation Area Designation Tool
The guidance on Resuscitation Area Designation describes a standardized approach to organize resuscitation areas and keep essential resources close at hand, ensuring the sickest patients in the emergency unit are clearly identified and receive needed care.
Health and safety briefing for respiratory diseases – ePROTECT
This course provides a general introduction to Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs) and basic hygiene measures to protect against infection. By the end of the course, you should be able to describe basic information about ARIs including what they are, how they are transmitted, how to assess the risk of infection and list basic hygiene measures to protect against infection.