During the past few weeks, coronavirus has drastically altered our lives. Particularly for those working in the healthcare sector to stop the outbreak of the coronavirus. Different organizations are increasingly offering platforms for peer-to-peer exchange, as well as tips, useful documents and links:

Webinars and information offered by Universities: Known educational institutions, which conduct research on global health, are offering webbased-courses on the of the coronavirus: the London School of Hygien & Tropical Medicine (“Disease Outbreaks in Low and Middle Income Countries”), and the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics of the Imperial College London (“Science matters: Let’s talk about COVID-19"). The WHO has also initiated its own webinar series on coronavirus on the platform OpenWHO.org.

The Corona Resource Centre of the Johns Hopkins-University offers further information: Daily, up to date reports, the expert-podcast “Public Health On Call”, as well as an interactive map and graphs of the worldwide infection rate. Additionally, the “School of Public Health” of the University of Michigan has made podcast-episodes available, such as “Coronavirus: How We Got Here” or “How Do Hospitals Prepare for a Pandemic”.

Networking in the health sector: The “Global Health Hub Germany” is a platform for Global Health initiated by the Federal Ministry of Health for stakeholders in the health sector to register and exchange knowledge. The platform is currently calling on its members to share their current activities and experiences with the Corona-pandemic. The responses will be published on the Website of the Global Health Hub. Interested parties can register online anytime.

Selfproduction of disinfectant: Seeing as currently sterilium is not available everywhere in the quantities necessary, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has published a guideline on how to produce disinfectant for different uses by oneself.

Producing protective equipment with 3D-printers: The crowdproducing-platform “print4health” offers hospitals, clinics, doctors and medical caregivers a databank, in which they can register their demand for products such as face masks or door knobs without contact. These products will then be produced via 3D-printing. This initiative was recognized by the jury of the “WirvsVirus”-Hackathon of the federal government. Other #WirvsVirus projects that were deemed award-winning can be found on Youtube.

Guidlines for action in health institutions: In their article “Guidance for Managing Ethical Issues in Infectious Disease Outbreaks” from 2016, the WHO presents lessons learned from the ebola outbreak from 2014 to 2016. Recommendations for the instruction of medical specialists in international development cooperation can be found here.