GOARN Outbreak and Response Scenario Training Canceled Due to COVID-19

TEPHINET recently collaborated with the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa, the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to organize an international GOARN Outbreak and Response Scenario Training in Kampala, Uganda in March 2020.

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the organizers needed to cancel this weeklong training. However, we hope to offer it again, possibly more than once as we continue our collaboration with GOARN. FETP staff and alumni should be on the lookout for similar opportunities from TEPHINET and our partners in the future.

As planned, this training aimed to orient future GOARN deployees to the reality and challenges of operating as part of an international outbreak response team with GOARN and WHO. The overall objective of the training was to provide a safe space for public health experts from different specialties (see below) to build and test their expertise, behaviors and attitudes.

Participants were to work in an international, multidisciplinary team in which they could apply their technical skills to address an emerging outbreak of unknown origin. Participants were to build and assess vital soft skills of future GOARN deployees, network with GOARN partners, and advocate for the role and benefit of GOARN, which celebrates its twentieth anniversary as a network on April 28, 2020.

TEPHINET assisted with the identification of FETP alumni to participate in the training. Participants were mid-level professionals with at least five years of post-FETP experience and technical experience in any of the following fields:

  • Epidemiology/surveillance
  • Infection prevention and control
  • Case management
  • Laboratory
  • Communications
  • Logistics
  • WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene)
  • Veterinary/animal health
  • Entomology

At the end of the training, participants were expected to be knowledgeable of the steps and soft skills required for effective outbreak response and would be considered ready for future deployment with GOARN and WHO.

Have you already deployed with GOARN? We encourage those who have deployed previously with GOARN to share their stories as part of the #IAmGOARN campaign to recognize GOARN’s contributions to public health over the past 20 years. Click here to share.