Staying ahead of outbreaks: emerging infections essentials

Event Description

This two-day online course, presented by the ESCMID Emerging Infections Subcommittee (EIS), provides an accessible introduction to emerging infectious diseases. Designed for infectious disease trainees and early-career professionals, it explores why and how infectious threats emerge, how they are detected and contained, and how clinicians respond. Topics include surveillance systems, the One Health approach, climate change, outbreak ethics, genomic tools, antimicrobial resistance, and vaccines. Interactive case discussions and a final quiz consolidate key learning and practical insights for current and future epidemic threats.

Intended audience: 

The course is open to ID and CM professionals, clinical virologists and epidemiologists with an interest in emerging infectious diseases.

Objectives:

• Be aware of the various definitions of what might constitute an ‘emerging’ infectious disease.
• Describe key global and regional surveillance systems and their role in early detection of new infectious diseases.
• Explain the importance of the One Health and human-animal interfaces in disease emergence.
• Analyse case studies of high-threat pathogens to identify patterns and challenges.
• Discuss how systemic change, including climate change, biodiversity decline, overpopulation, mass deforestation, ultra-urbanisation, environmental pollution, intensive livestock farming, the illegal trade in exotic animals, and the global transport of people, animals, and goods, drives the emergence and spread of infectious diseases.
• Recognise ethical considerations in outbreak scenarios and public health interventions.
• Outline core components of outbreak response and containment strategies.
• Understand the role of genomic surveillance and real-time sequencing in identifying novel pathogens.
• Reflect on the impact of antimicrobial resistance.
• Evaluate the current landscape of vaccine and therapeutic development for emerging threats.
• Recognise and improve the existing practical skills gap in outbreak investigation tools and real-time surveillance systems among trainees.

Course coordinator:

Casandra Bulescu, Bucharest, Romania

Organisers: 

ESCMID Emerging Infections Subcommittee

Accreditation:

The ESCMID office will apply for EACCME accreditation. 
Each participant can only receive the number of credits according to actual participation in the event and upon completion of the feedback survey.

Certification:

Course organisers will monitor attendance. Only participants attending sessions will be able to receive the certification.

Do not miss the opportunity to update your knowledge with an extensive network of experts in the field, and register now!
 

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Registration Fees

Duration: 2 days