The Union in collaboration with World Health Organization has launched an interactive online course, Childhood TB for Healthcare Workers. The six-module curriculum covers how to diagnose, treat and prevent childhood TB, including how to perform contact screening. The modules are interactive and ask participants to make decisions about patient care in various settings through case examples.
The self-paced course, which takes six to eight hours to complete, is designed for healthcare workers at the secondary and primary level of the healthcare system. The content is based on WHO’s 2014 Guidance for national tuberculosis programmes on the management of tuberculosis in children, as well as The Union's Desk guide for diagnosis and management of TB in children, and focuses on the clinical management of childhood TB. One full module is dedicated to TB prevention, focusing on household contact screening and provision of preventive therapy.
Childhood TB for Healthcare Workers is the first major offering of The Union’s new Childhood TB Learning Portal. The Learning Portal will offer a variety of resources aimed to support countries’ efforts to address the 10-step plan outlined in The Roadmap for Childhood TB, published in 2013. The Roadmap stresses the urgent need for training and reference materials on childhood TB for health workers.
The Desmond Tutu TB Centre at Stellenbosch University, in collaboration with The Union and funded through USAID TB CARE II South Africa, has already begun to use the course and plans to train up to 400 healthcare workers in the Eastern Cape in South Africa.
The Global Health Bureau, Office of Health, Infectious Disease and Nutrition (HIDN), US Agency for International Development financially supported the development of the Childhood TB Learning Portal and the course through TB CARE I under the terms of Agreement No. AID-OAA-A-10-00020.
Childhood TB for Healthcare Workers is offered at no charge, and learners receive a certificate of completion. To learn more or to register,