

Former Soviet Union (FSU) SuperCourse is created in the frame of Supercourse project – online library of lectures in public health, epidemiology and Internet – www.pitt.edu/~super1. Education and information sharing is paramount to preventing all forms of diseases and conditions. The Supercourse Team asserts that the Internet provides a powerful and inexpensive tool for the improvement of health as well protection from disasters. To date, more than 500 public health workers from all 15 FSU countries have participated to integrate Internet-based education into prevention of all form of diseases and terrorism/bioterrorism. FSU Supercourse is collaboration of FSU scientists involved in prevention and the Internet for creation of Russian language library of lectures. The main topics of presentations include global health, information security, non-communicable diseases, infectious diseases, disaster medicine, disaster preparedness and mitigation. The training in the area of prevention and Internet-Prevention (I-Prevention) is the primary goal of the collaboration. We started development of FSU Supercourse at the beginning of 2000 as a part of Drs.Shubnikov and Troufanov’s fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. The number of Internet users in Russia reached 2 million people in 2000. By the end of year 2006 the number of Internet users in Russia reached 21% of total population (about 30 million people). The fast growing of Internet users is big advantages for Internet based programs, but the number of Internet users in Russia still lower compare with European countries (more than 50%). Recently, we introduced a Russian language Supercourse web site at http://www.supercourse.pochta.ru/. More than 250 lectures translated into Russian language already available, including lecture by Dr.Noji on Public Health Disaster Consequences of Disasters. Creation and development of country or language specific libraries of lectures and development of scientific networks as FSU Supercourse, is a tool for education and improving global health including prevention of biological threats and pandemics. Our FSU Supercourse may become a backbone for other health and science projects in FSU countries.