2015-11-25

From November 14-15, 2015, The International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) of the University of Oxford and Shantou University Medical College (SUMC) jointly held the 7th Oxford Training Course. The training course was organized by Shantou-Oxford Clinical Research Unit (SOCRU) at SUMC, an academic collaboration project between SUMC and Oxford.

The course started with a welcome address by Dr. Frieda Law, Consultant from the Li Ka Shing Foundation. Afterwards, Prof. William Ba-Thein, Director of SOCRU, expressed his sincere appreciation to the instructors of the training course, including Dr. Gail Carson of Oxford, Dr. Angela Merianos of World Health Organization, Prof. Chris Parry of Nagasaki University, Prof. Zhancheng Gao of Peking University, Dr. Peta-Anne Zimmerman of Griffith University, and Dr. Raul Pardinaz-Solis of the University of Sydney, for their visits and trainings to SUMC students and medical staff from SUMC affiliated hospitals.

The training course was focused on public health interventions, preparedness and response to disease outbreaks from a clinical perspective. The instructors once engaged in managing SARS and Ebola with WHO, which enriched their theoretical knowledge and practical experience in disease outbreaks. The instructors gave lectures on topics of an overview of emerging pathogens, public health preparedness and response to outbreaks, managing infection prevention and control in outbreak situations, similarities and differences between human infections with H5N1 and H7N9 in China, the role of the laboratory in detection and management of infection, a reflection on ethical issues in rapidly evolving epidemics, the use of the Chinese Clinical Characterisation Protocol, etc.

In addition, the instructors conducted a role-play section to deepen the trainees’ understanding of the knowledge they learned. It simulated a situation to test how the trainees in different functional groups would respond to a potential outbreak and how they would communicate over the phone with consultants of WHO in Geneva, Switzerland and professionals of CDC in the USA when they received a H7N9 suspected case. After discussion, each group worked out measures and shared their ideas, which received good comments from the instructors. The role-play section aimed to let the trainees understand emerging and reemerging infectious diseases and appropriate responses. The other objective of this part was to gain insight into the regional, national, and international studies in emerging infectious diseases with respect to practicability and operability.

At the end of the course, all participants received a training certificate jointly conferred by SUMC and the University of Oxford.