Introduction to Coronaviruses, COVID-19 and Emerging Respiratory Viruses

Contact Hours: 3 (an estimated time frame devoted to a course of study from start to finish that can vary from student to student)

Course Description


Introduction to Coronaviruses, COVID-19 and Emerging Respiratory Viruses is a Free Course.   Clicking on the "Purchase Now" button will process your enrollment.  Payment is not required.  Once processed you will be able to self-enroll yourself with username and password that you choose to create. Read below for further information.

 

Methods for detection, prevention, response and control.

   

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.


The CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO license allows users to freely copy, reproduce, reprint, distribute, translate and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes, provided WHO is acknowledged as the source using the following suggested citation:


Introduction to Coronaviruses: .edu and non-commercial usage: World Health Organization; 2020. license : CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

 

Outcome


Upon successful completion, individuals will be familiar with and able to:

 

  • Describe the fundamental principles of emerging respiratory viruses and how to effectively respond to an outbreak.
  • Understand the nature of emerging respiratory viruses, how to detect and assess an outbreak, strategies for preventing and controlling outbreaks due to novel respiratory viruses.

  • Determine what strategies should be used to communicate risk and engage communities to detect, prevent and respond to the emergence of a novel respiratory virus.

 

Outline


This brief introduction provides an overview of emerging respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.

 

Module A: Introduction to Emerging respiratory viruses, including COVID-19:

Overall learning objective: To be able to explain why a emerging respiratory viruses, including COVID-19, are a global threat to human health


Module B: Detecting Emerging respiratory viruses, including COVID-19: Surveillance and Laboratory investigation:
Overall learning objective: To describe how to detect and assess an emerging respiratory virus outbreak.


Module C: Risk Communication and Community Engagement:
Overall learning objective: To describe what strategies should be used to communicate risk and engage communities to detect, prevent and respond to COVID-19

Module D: Preventing and Responding to an emerging respiratory virus, including COVID-19:

Overall learning objective: To describe strategies for preventing and controlling emerging respiratory pathogens, including coronavirus outbreaks.