New BioHazard Response Course Trains Construction Workers
Working with its partners Gryphon Scientific and Fassino/Design, Illumina created an on-line course to help reduce risks for construction workers in biodisaster sites. Following a natural disaster, disease outbreak, terrorist attack, or other event, construction workers often spend long times in such areas doing clean-up, repair, and reconstruction. The course covers pathogens and transmission, protective practices and equipment, decontamination, and exposure response. Illumina made the course particularly valuable by including real-life examples and mixing serious topics with some lighter elements to keep construction workers engaged. The course finished up with a realistic set of scenarios – a contagious disease outbreak, a hospital-based accident, an aerosolized terrorist attack, and a hurricane disaster – to give participants a chance to test and reinforce what they’ve learned.