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The study of parasitology has become essential to build future health care professionals with skills to respond to public health threats such as the recent outbreaks due to Cryptosporidium spp. or Giardia in the United Kingdom (UK). To facilitate the teaching of parasitology, which negligible across the different undergraduate and taught masters degrees at De Montfort University (DMU, Leicester, UK), a group from different EU Universities [DMU and the Spanish universities: University of San Pablo CEU (USP-CEU) and University Miguel Hernández], clinicians and practising Biomedical Scientists from the UK National Health Service are developing an on-line package for teaching and learning parasitology named DMU e-Parasitology. This package will have three sections or modules: a theoretical module with mini e-learning units to study major human parasites such as Leishmania spp. or malaria; a virtual laboratory module with units to enhance the learning and study of parasitic diseases such as culture of parasites, staining and use of light microscope to identify these organisms or molecular techniques for the identification of parasites to species level; and a virtual microscope with a real slide collection of clinical samples of parasites. The DMU e-Parasitology resource is being created for undergraduate/postgraduate human health science students, with corresponding degrees of difficulty. Units will include a tool to assess the learning process of the students, in form of a quiz, activity and/or exam, and several formative activities throughout each mini-module. The development of this teaching resource will cover a gap in the traditional teaching and learning methods that are currently used and provided in the participating universities. The DMU e-Parasitology will help our undergraduate students to gain significant knowledge in parasitology by promoting self-learning. A unit related to Toxocara, a helminthiasis with prevalence rates that can reach as high as 40% or more in different parts of the world, was firstly developed to use as a model for the development of the DMU eParasitology. Three undergraduate students that studied parasitology during the first term in 2016/17 [6 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System credits (ECTS); 3 rd year module] from the bilingual Pharmacy and Biotechnology degree at USP-CEU were voluntarily recruited to provide comprehensive feedback for this model unit at the beginning of the second term. This unit was tested with these students because of their comprehensive knowledge of parasitology. Students described the model unit as interactive and presenting the appropriate content and resources to study the parasitic disease addressed (toxocariasis). Limitations were the poor navigability in the formative exercise section and the excessive information provided in some slides that could hinder their understanding. The team has addressed these limitations and is using this unit as a model to build the DMU e-Parasitology, which will be accessible through the DMU website (...

An innovative teaching group at De Montfort University (DMU, UK) and at the University of Alcalá (Spain) has developed specific training to prepare human health students to respond to biological incidents. The purpose of this training is to provide a basic understanding of environmental toxicology, recovery, public health and medical preparedness to protect humans and minimise the spread of biological hazards. We have followed previous experience gained when responding to the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in Makeni, Sierra Leone (West Africa). Previously, to create this training, a series of basic competences to respond to biological incidents were created by our group for undergraduate students [1] following the European Commission competences specified for medical responders [2]. A critical part of any intervention plan to respond to these incidents is to implement a quick response to protect the public and actions to minimise the occurrence of infections and recover the environment affected by the biological agent(s) since they can subsequently impact humans. A specific short training course/workshop (3 hours long) has been created in conjunction with a series of specific lectures on emerging pathogens, biological hazards and prevention, medical preparedness and public health. Students were provided with a biological incident scenario affecting different environments (open water and food production systems) and they needed to tailor a basic recovery strategy following the novel methodology and guidelines to tailor a recovery response to biological incidents developed by Public Health England (PHE) [3]. Our recovery training has been tested within different undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (BSc Biomedical and BMedSci Medical Science; MSc Advances in Biomedical Science) at DMU during the 2016/17 academic course; we have determined high levels of student satisfaction and engagement. Currently we are in the process of validating this training by delivering it in other European universities and/or different health care programmes. Thus, we delivered a modified version of this recovery training/workshop to third year pharmacy students (n=101) enrolled in the module Biological Analysis & Laboratory Diagnostic at the Universidad de San Pablo CEU (Spain) in April 2017. Pharmacy students gain an appropriate knowledge on infectious diseases, microbiology and parasitology during the first two years of study, so we decided to reduce the length of the workshop to 1.5 hours. A validated feedback-questionnaire was distributed that has revealed the following initial impressions (33 students completed the questionnaire): 93.9% of students enjoyed the different exercises created (45.4% agreed; 48.5% strongly agreed); only 6.1% of them did not (6.1% disagreed; 0% strongly disagreed). 87.9% of these students reported that the novel PHE resources used aided their learning on environmental recovery and restoration. Finally, 93.9 % of students (42.4% agreed; 51.5% strongly agreed) indicated that they have gained knowledge ...