**3. Results**

The survey covered 84 SORT IT courses with 895 alumni from 93 countries. A total of 652 (73%) alumni (female = 45%) responded to the survey (Figure 1). Of those who responded, 417 from 72

countries were actively involved in the COVID-19 response and 307 (74%) from 60 countries were applying their skills acquired from SORT IT courses to tackle the pandemic (Figure 2). The top five Low-and Middle Income-Countries (LMIC) where alumni were applying their skills included India (70), Myanmar (32), Zimbabwe (26), Kenya (19), Pakistan (18) and China (6). SORT IT Alumni were also using their acquired skills in high-income countries (HIC) including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Japan, USA, and the United Kingdom (Figure 2).

**Figure 1.** Flowchart showing response rate, involvement in COVID-19 and utilization of skills acquired through the Structured Operational Research and Training InitiaTive (SORT IT, 2009–2019).

(SORT IT: Structured Operational Research and Training InitiaTive).

*Africa (22 countries):* Zimbabwe (26), Kenya (19), Ethiopia (13), Sierra Leone (8), Uganda (5), Guinea (4), Malawi (4), South Africa (3), Sudan (3), eSwatini (2), Nigeria (2), Rwanda (2), Botswana (1), Burundi (1), Republic of Cameroon (1), Côte d'Ivoire (1), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1), Liberia (1), Mauritania (1), Niger (1), United Republic of Tanzania (1), Zambia (1)

*Asia (16 countries):* India (70), Myanmar (32), Pakistan (18), Nepal (8), China (6), Uzbekistan (6), Bhutan (5), Kyrgyzstan (3), Bangladesh (2), Tajikistan (2), Cambodia (1), Indonesia (1), Japan (1), Kazakhstan (1), Sri Lanka (1), Vietnam (1)

*Europe (8 countries):* Belgium (6), Ukraine (6), Armenia (3), Italy (2), Azerbaijan (1), Belarus (1), Norway (1), United Kingdom (1)

*South Pacific (7 countries):* Federated States of Micronesia (4), Fiji (3), Papua New Guinea (3), Kiribati (2), Palau (2), Republic of the Marshall Islands (1), Guam (1)

*South America (3 countries):* Colombia (2), Brazil (1), Peru (1)

*North America (3 countries)*: Canada (2), United States America (2) Honduras (1) Australia (2).

**Figure 2.** Geographic mapping of 307 SORT IT alumni applying their acquired SORT IT skills in 60 countries to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Table 1 shows various areas of the COVID-19 emergency response where SORT IT alumni were applying their skills with some illustrative quotes. Skills were being applied in all the pillars of the outbreak response, namely: situation analysis, surveillance, emergency preparedness, case managemen<sup>t</sup> and data generation and reporting. The three areas with the highest proportion of alumni applying their skills were data generation, analysis and reporting (56%), situation analysis (55%) and surveillance (41%). Alumni were also applying their skills in mitigating the health system e ffects of COVID-19 on diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and non-communicable diseases (27%) and in conducting COVID-19 related research (26%).

In total, alumni from 85 countries responded, in 72 countries they were involved in the COVID-19 response and in 60 countries they were applying their skills gained through SORT IT.





TB: Tuberculosis; HIV/AIDS: Human Immune Deficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; NCDS: Non-Communicable Diseases. Many participants reported using several skills, and hence numbers and percentages are more than 488 and 100% respectively.
