Background
In 1988, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution for the global eradication of poliomyelitis. This resolution marked the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), a public-private partnership led by national governments, the World Health Organization, Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and most recently GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. which has also joined the GPEI partnership.
The GPEI, in collaboration with its partners, has helped countries make tremendous progress in protecting the world's population from poliovirus. As a result, the number of polio cases globally has decreased by 99.9% since the launch of the partnership.
The goal of the GPEI is to ensure that no child is ever paralyzed by any poliovirus again. To achieve this goal, the GPEI has established standard operating procedures (SOPs) to provide:
- Advice on how to respond to a poliovirus event or outbreak.
- Performance standards for an effective and rapid response.
This online training is designed to familiarize them with standard operating procedures for polio outbreak response, provide high-level information and a contextual understanding of polio outbreak response strategies.
Training objectives
By the end of this training, you will be able to:
- Describe the role of the GPEI partnership in outbreak response activities.
- List the essential elements of a successful response.
- Explain the process and timeline of notification, investigation and risk assessment.
- Describe the actions required as part of detailed outbreak response planning.
- Describe the four-step immunization strategy for outbreak response.
- Describe communication strategies to support immunization.
- Describe strategies to strengthen surveillance.
- Describe the response activities that continue until or after the outbreak is closed.
Hearing
The online training is designed for current and future polio programme staff who may be involved in outbreak response activities, as well as anyone interested in learning more about polio outbreak responses.
Duration
It will take you about four hours to complete this training at your own pace.
Methodology
This training uses interactive multimedia materials to present the training content on polio outbreak response procedures.
The content is divided into short modules, designed to present the training in easy-to-manage blocks of information for self-paced learning. The modules track the progress of tasks and activities according to the polio outbreak response timeline.
The modules contain "training questions" to stimulate reflection and engagement, and each module ends with a knowledge test. Knowledge tests are meant to support the learning process, so don't worry if your answers aren't all correct.
An end-of-course evaluation can be carried out to test the knowledge of all modules. Participants can earn a certificate by achieving an average of more than 80%.
Additional reading and support materials are also provided in each module, through the Resources tab, and in the Training Resource Repository.
For help on how to use the training, please refer to the Getting Started section.
Structure
This training consists of seven modules and a final assessment:
- Module 1: Introduction to Polio Outbreak Response
- Module 2: Notification, Investigation and Risk Assessment
- Module 3: Planning a response
- Module 4: Communication Strategies
- Module 5: Response Activities: Immunization
- Module 6: Response Activities: Surveillance
- Module 7: Response activities until the end of an outbreak
- Final evaluation of the training (Certificate available upon successful completion)
For more information on the polio outbreak response and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, visit http://polioeradication.org/
Sources of information
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is a public-private partnership led by national governments, the World Health Organization, Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. Its goal is to eradicate polio worldwide.
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