As the global health community rallies to support the COVID-19 response, the Fleming Fund is committed to continuing crucial work on AMR, during this crisis and beyond.
Fleming Fund Online AMR Course: new modules!
The Fleming Fund and the Open University have released new modules on the Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance course, meaning 23 modules are now available. The course is completely free and available world-wide, regardless of whether participants are affiliated with the Fleming Fund.
Each module should take up to 6 hours to complete, but students can work through them at their own pace. Participants can also choose to complete a study pathway that suggests enrollment in a specific series of modules according to a student's profession or current role. Click the "view PDF" button for more information around pathways.
At the end of each module (apart from the first one) participants will be awarded a digital badge. Digital badges are like a certificate: they demonstrate that a skill has been gained and are evidence of a student's work and achievement on the module. You can download them and share them on your social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. The following modules have been released by the Open University:
- AMR Surveillance & You: identify the skills and areas of knowledge needed to develop in your role and to reflect on how learning in other modules can change your working practice in relation to AMR.
- The Problem of Antimicrobial Resistance: gain insight into our understanding of prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, learn about hygiene theory, germ theory and the discovery of antibiotics.
- Introducing Antimicrobial Resistance: explore how antibiotics can exert powerful antibacterial effects, focusing on the different modes of antibiotic action.
- AMR in Animals: explore in depth the challenge of antimicrobial resistance in animals.
- Isolating and Identifying Bacteria (Human and Animal Health): in these two modules, you will learn microbiology techniques for isolating and identifying bacteria in clinical laboratories, including sample collection, transport, and storage of isolates.
- Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing: Explore disk diffusion, MICs and breakpoints and understand relevant international guidelines.
- Testing for Mechanisms of Resistance: learn about the phenotypic and genotypic laboratory techniques that are used to test for common mechanisms of AMR.
- Quality Assurance & AMR Surveillance: Learn key principles of laboratory quality assurance, quality control and quality management systems.
- Introducing a One Health Approach to AMR: Improve your understanding of One Health and the Tripartite (WHO, FAO and OIE).
- An Introduction to AMR Surveillance: explore the concept of surveillance, its types and purpose in the context of AMR.
- Introducing AMR Surveillance Systems: Get an introduction to local, national and global AMR surveillance networks and learn more about the One Health approach to surveillance design.
- AMR Surveillance in Animals: explore the concepts of surveillance and monitoring, building on Antimicrobial resistance in animals.
- Sampling Human Health: look at sampling for AMR surveillance in human health, but also draw comparisons to animal health, to emphasise the importance of One Health approaches in tackling AMR.
- Sampling Animal Health: look at sampling for AMR surveillance in livestock and aquatic animal health, drawing comparisons to human health, as part of the emphasis on the importance of One Health approaches in tackling AMR.
- An Overview of National AMR Surveillance: deepen understanding of national AMR surveillance systems. The module builds on the concepts and learnings from Introducing AMR surveillance systems.
- Fundamentals of Data for AMR: Review the importance of data in an AMR system and concepts of error and bias.
- Summarising and Presenting AMR Data: look at common ways of summarising data visually, review the strengths and limitations of each approach, and understand how to use visual summaries to enhance the analysis of AMR-related data.
- Processing and Analysing AMR Data: learn how AMR data is transformed into information, locally, nationally and globally. The module provides an overview of the stages from data collection, to data management and data analysis.
- Antimicrobial Stewardship in Animal Health: learn about antimicrobial stewardship in animal health relating to use of antimicrobials, animal welfare and the role of diagnostics.
- Communicating AMR Data: learn how to make the most of AMR data, recognising different target audiences and communication strategies to increase your impact.
- Legal and Ethical Considerations in AMR Data: gain a deeper understanding of key concepts in medical, public health and animal ethics and how they relate to AMR.
- Diagnostic Stewardship in Clinical Practice: understand the role of clinical microbiologists, the principles of taking appropriate clinical samples in the context of AMR and how the microbiology laboratory can be used effectively in patient management.
Further modules will be released in the coming months. To find out more about the release dates, click on the "View PDF" button that appears on the screen.
The full document is available here
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The Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Fleming Fund regional grantee, presented on the SEQAFRICA project at the symposium ‘Beyond COVID-19: Pathogen Genomics and Bioinformatics for Health Security in Africa’, hosted at the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.