The E-DETECT project and its findings are being shared widely as consortium members participate in international training events.

In October, Professor Alberto Matteelli of UNIBS took part in ESCMID’s postgraduate course in Migration Health.  Prof Matteelli was among a pan-European line-up of speakers who shared their knowledge and experience during this four-day course in Palermo.

A few months earlier, in July, activities being run by E-DETECT TB were selected as part of the schedule for a World Health Organization summer school on Refugee and Migrant Health.  The intensive five-day course was also held in Sicily, where E-DETECT researchers are screening migrants as they arrive in Europe, and the course programme included a field trip to Catania where delegates visited the frontline services who work with the migrants arriving via the Mediterranean.  Professor Ibrahim Abubakar of UCL, the Scientific Coordinator for the E-DETECT TB project, was also in attendance, delivering a lecture on infectious diseases among migrants including tuberculosis screening.

The above events were focused on the current European migration crisis from different perspectives: public health for WHO Europe summer school and clinical management for the ESCMID postgraduate course.  In both cases, the work of the E-DETECT migrant screening project has been presented, reaching a wide, young international audience, representing a model to follow for the management of TB risks related to migration.

However, international training activity of the E-DETECT consortium doesn’t stop at TB and immigration; other teaching activities are being performed in the WHO’s 2017 Sondalo training course “Implementing the WHO End TB strategy and the new vision of TB elimination: skills for managers and consultants”, with a focus on the project activity being performed in endemic European countries (such as Romania and Bulgaria) and on the model of active case finding protocol promoted and carried out by E-DETECT partners.

E-DETECT is also working alongside the ERS to produce a short series of webinars.  The first, on TB detection, prevention and treatment in immigrants, took place in November and a recording is available online now.  Two more webinars are coming up in 2018: “Multi-country databases and impact on strengthening national TB programmes” and “Outreach for early diagnosis and strengthen care integration in vulnerable populations in Eastern Europe”.  Further details will follow soon.