Abstract
Infectious diseases can spread all over the world due to the transportation of people and goods through ships, aircrafts and vehicles. During the transportation on board of conveyances (ships, aircrafts, trains, buses), diseases can spread from person-to-person, by infected food or water or through vectors. The same can happen when travelers pass through points of entry (PoE) such as: ports, airports and ground-crossings.
To properly prevent and respond to public health events at PoE, designated ports, airports and ground-crossings core capacities for PoE are dictated in the IHR (2005), which should be in place at all designated PoE. According to the World Health Organization Global Health Observatory data, the IHR core capacities implementation at designated PoE at the European WHO region is 64%. In order to support countries with this implementation, exchange among countries of effective, legalized practices in accordance with IHR (2005), the so-called best practices, can be of important help.
Besides the goal to improve mere capacity, professionals in charge of communicable diseases at PoE should be prepared to respond to public health events and prevent cross-border spread. Education, training and exercises are common ways to achieve this, but demand extensive expertise, time and financial means. As part of a EU Joint Action, a collective training program for designated PoE is being developed, to share efforts and resources, and to help countries better respond to public health events.
However, regarding this training, many questions are still unanswered. What is effective training for public health events at designated PoE, and what components and methodology should it contain. What are the specific training needs of these people? What competencies should they have? What can we learn from previous trainings and what are best practices for designated PoE? The aim of this workshop is to provide a step-by-step overview of all elements that are essential to improve capacity and develop and organize effective training program for event management at designated points of entry in Europe. This study was funded by the European Union’s Health Programme (2014-2020).
Key messages
Extensive and long-term evaluation of training and exercising regarding infectious disease control at points of entry is needed, in order to design effective trainings and facilitate core capacities. Collection and dissemination of best practices in infectious disease control at points of entry, facilitate the challenging task of IHR core capacity implementation.
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