Topic outline
This e-learning course aims to support plant health professionals—particularly those working within National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs)—in strengthening their understanding of emergency preparedness for pest outbreaks.
It guides participants through the key steps needed to prevent, prepare for, and respond effectively to pest emergencies. The course also covers official actions taken following the detection of a pest, such as establishing quarantine zones to prevent its spread.
Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of developing robust contingency plans and setting up clear command structures and management systems to ensure a timely, coordinated, and effective response.
This course is part of the IPPC Plant Health Campus. The Campus offers a variety of e-learning courses, guides and technical resources on key phytosanitary systems, with the overall goal of strengthening national phytosanitary capacity.
The main audience of this course is NPPO staff and NPPO stakeholders, including other government agencies, exporters and importers. This course may also be of interest to Phytosanitary Capacity Evaluation (PCE) facilitators, who support NPPOs to complete PCEs, to understand capacities and resources required for emergency response.
- Key steps needed to prevent, prepare for, and respond effectively to pest emergencies.
- Importance of creating a contingency plan, allocating sufficient resources, setting up clear command structures and management systems for emergency preparedness.
- Key responsibilities of NPPOs during a pest outbreak, including the official actions taken following the detection of a pest and post-response activities.
- The process of planning, preparing and conducting a simulation exercise to test the effectiveness of a contingency plan.
This course consists of two lessons of approximately 30-50 minutes duration each:
- Lesson 1 - Introduction to emergency preparedness
- Lesson 2 - Contingency planning and response implementation
- Lesson 3 - Transitioning from response to recovery
- Lesson 4 - Reviewing and testing contingency plans
This course runs on the latest versions of the major browsers, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.
The course opens in a separate popup window. If this does not happen, a popup blocker in the browser is probably preventing it from opening and you will need to disable popup blockers for this site. Please read the following instructions on how to do this.
Digital certification
This course offers certification. You will get your digital badge upon passing a final exam after completing the course and achieving a grade of at least 75%. Please click on the button below to complete the exam, or refer to our Certification section to learn more.
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