The European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (EuFMD) program is collaborating with the RVC eMedia Unit to create an e-learning site which supports government vets working to control FMD in the field. The site includes a comprehensive Induction course and a new Foot-and-Mouth Disease Emergency Preparation course. The courses have been created by the RVC e-learning team working closely with subject specialists at the EuFMD and comprise a combination of expert authored content, videos, forums and assessment.
The EuFMD states that if a country experiences an FMD emergency, it can be difficult to rapidly train large numbers of vets in key FMD issues – particularly if vets are recruited from non-government service to provide support. In such a situation, this course can be made available rapidly to large numbers of member state vets, enabling them to do the course. Veterinary management can then be provided with a list of who has completed the course, and will have confidence that a basic level of training has therefore been achieved.
EuFMD already provides each member state with the option of having some vets trained in FMD on their real-time courses, but veterinary management may wish to have larger numbers of vets trained on FMD. These course will be made available to member states who can then nominate a number of vets to take part. Such a session would be accompanied by a tutor on the forum to encourage discussion and answer questions. This training of course is not as in-depth or comprehensive as the real-time courses, but it can complement and support other training activities such as seminars. In an environment of reduced resources for veterinary services, this e-learning course may be able to fill a training gap in an efficient way, supporting member state preparedness.
