In Europe and Central Asia, FAO has remotely trained hundreds of animal health professionals in African swine fever (ASF) preparedness. African swine fever is a viral disease of pigs (and wild boar) with a lethality rate of up to 100 percent that leads to huge economic losses, trade disruptions, and challenges to livelihoods. Rampaging throughout three continents, never before in history has the disease had such a wide distribution with so many millions of pigs affected and killed.

In 2007, ASF jumped outside Africa and into Georgia, and gradually spread westwards into Central Europe and eastwards all the way into China. The disease spreads mostly through the movement of infected meat, so any country in the world with a pig sector is at a high and imminent risk of an incursion of the virus and should prepare accordingly.

To ensure optimal preparedness, early detection, and response against an incursion, it is paramount to reach and train first responders – the veterinarians. Yet field veterinarians are in the field, all over the country, making the endeavour expensive and time-consuming to train them face-to-face, even through cascade or train-the-trainer approaches. Moreover, FAO could not keep up with requests for face-to-face trainings coming from affected and at-risk member countries.

In this context, it was decided to develop an online course on ASF preparedness, which was already completed by about 1 000 veterinarians not only in Europe and Central Asia but also across the globe.

An online format has obvious advantages to overcome these issues; virtual training is easy and cost-effective to scale up, can reach hundreds of people even in remote locations (as long as an internet connection is available), and allows trainees to learn at their own pace and at the most convenient times. Moreover, with COVID-19-restrictions in travel and face-to-face meetings, online learning has allowed FAO to continue delivering much needed training in preparedness to member countries.

Language is a key challenge when developing training for a varied international audience. The online learning materials were designed to be readily translatable into additional languages.