October 2019: HCID Workshop of the EFFO Project with the new cooperation partner Opera Village

From 14-18 October 2019, the EFFO project organised a workshop on "High Consequence Infectious Diseases" (HCID) at Robert Koch Institute together with the Opera Village Africa. The aim was to connect different actors from the project country Burkina Faso as well as to build capacities for detection and care of HCID cases.

First associations of the participants on HCID were visualized in a word cloud (© RKI)

For the workshop, 13 guests from various governmental and non-governmental institutions in medical care, research and teaching in Burkina Faso travelled to Berlin. Two colleagues from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), also a partner of the RKI, contributed their expertise and impressive experience on Lassa fever, one of the week’s main topics.

The workshop bridged the gap between the global perspective of international outbreak control and the need for efficient training of health care workers at local level. In addition to the focus on HCID and in particular on Lassa fever in an international context, the group dealt with current outbreaks as well as outbreak related research questions. As a train-the-trainer component, the participants developed important elements for guiding practical exercises. Furthermore the basics of feedback were also discussed and applied. The workshop also provided a platform for a very fruitful South-South exchange which was highly appreciated by all participants.

A first pilot training in the Opera Village Africa took place in June 2017 were Ebola virus disease and Lassa fever were discussed as well.