May 19, 2015 04:23 PM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public health received a $100,000 grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to create a Biosafety and Infectious Disease Training Initiative.

"We learned firsthand from the recent Ebola experience in Texas that concerns about infectious disease exposures extend far beyond the health care community,"  Robert Emery, professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences at UTHealth School of Public Health and vice president of safety, health, environment and risk management at UTHealth, said in a statement.

Emery said the supplemental grant will allow them to develop and deliver training to a "wide variety of audiences, including workers who we don't usually consider at risk for exposure to the Ebola virus, such as public service employees, waste handlers, funeral directors and others."

UTHealth will partner with the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, one of only three biocontainment units in the country, to establish this new training program.

The program will include an intensive hands-on operations-level course, an awareness-level course and a community-level course to be delivered online.

"Personnel will deliver this training using a train-the-trainer model to amplify the impact of the award," Janelle Rios, deputy director of the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at the School of Public Health, said in a statement. "In the future, we intend to develop refresher training as well."

This grant is a supplement of a larger project called the Hazardous Materials Worker Health and Safety Training, funded by NIEHS Award Number U45ES019360. The original five-year grant was for $4 million and began in 2010.

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