The European Respiratory Society course on acute respiratory pandemics: how to plan for and manage them

Adeoti, Adekunle Olatayo; Marbus, Sierk

The high point of this course was the workshop simulating a pandemic scenario due to a new CoV strain. During this workshop lead by G. Carson, the knowledge acquired on the ERS course was put into practice. The participants were divided into six groups representing stakeholders from every healthcare level: clinicians, laboratory healthcare workers, researchers, government, and local and national public health personnel. Each stakeholder had to adapt their strategy and management plan depending on new information given while the scenario evolved. There were live active inserts by Skype from WHO, Public Health England and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the scenario escalated, to add realism. At the end of the workshop, situational reports were given by each stakeholder, underscoring the need for integrated care, effective communication skills, early research and information management in the event of an outbreak. Important take-home messages were the need to improve communication between stakeholders and establish effective collaboration in outbreak control, as well as early efforts to integrate research activities in the event of a pandemic.