Strengthening response coordination through public health emergency operations centers in Africa: Lessons learned from 56-week webinar sessions, 2020-2021

Background Following the declaration of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a pandemic on 11 March 2020, in-person events including trainings were canceled to limit the spread of the pandemic. A virtual learning program was established in May 2020 by Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and other partners to strengthen COVID-19 response coordination through the public health emergency operations centers (PHEOCs). We present a review of the webinar series, the experience, and the lessons learned. Method A data extraction tool was developed to retrieve data from the Africa CDC’s webinar data repository. Major findings were synthesized and described per thematic area. Results A total of 12,715 (13% of the 95,230 registrants) attended the 56 PHEOC webinar sessions between June 2020 and December 2021 and 47% of the attendees came from 17 countries. Of those who attended, 8,528 (70%) were from Africa. The webinars provided 97 learning hours with an average length of 1.18 hours per session. On average, there were 235 attendees per session. In addition, there was an average of 26 interactions between participants and facilitators per session. A total of 4,084 (44%) of the participants (9,283) responded to the post-session surveys, with over 95% rating the webinar topics as being relevant to their work, contributed to improving their understanding of PHEOC operationalization, and with extensive ease of comprehension. Conclusion The virtual training served the intended audience given the high number of participants from African member states, with satisfactory feedback on training relevance. We highlighted a just-in-time, progressively adaptive experience in delivering a PHEOC/PHEM virtual learning in Africa with a consequential global audience at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Clinical Trial NA ### Funding Statement No specific ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: No ethical approval required, however, the work was done in line with organizational policy I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes Data could be accessed upon request to the author