30/09/2019

During the week of 16 – 20 September 2019, colleagues from PHE’s National Infection Service (NIS) trained colleagues at the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI) in Addis Ababa on biosafety and biosecurity.

The workshop aimed to help the EPHI team strengthen their capacity of containment of a level 3 laboratories used for the isolation and identification of high risk pathogens, by introducing high containment work practices

Trainers Jane Shallcross, Christopher Logue and Jodie Owen from PHE’s National Infection Service (NIS) used different exercises and demonstrations to help delegates gain practical experience and gain confidence, and also introduced risk assessment procedures, on topics such as hazard identification, mitigation and risk rating. 

The workshop was part of PHE’s International Health Regulations (IHR) Strengthening Project, a DHSC Official Development Assistance (ODA) - funded global health security project which aims to build and strengthen health protection capacity in selected low and middle income countries and regions, to improve compliance with the WHO IHR 2005.

The training was well received by EPHI staff, with positive feedback from participants including: 

“The training was well prepared, and it was very helpful. It is my first time to get RA [Risk Assessment] training and I learnt a lot.  I have enjoyed the exercise, it was very helpful.”

“The exercises and discussion sessions are very realistic - now I got more knowledge from you I would like to thank you.”