GoSL, Africa CDC/W.H.O TRAIN 72 EMERGENCY RESPONDERS
By Mohamed Souire Bangura
The Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) through the National Public Health Agency (NPHA) in collaboration with the African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the African Volunteer for Health Corps SURGE training in Bo city, Sierra Leone. This is in a bid to strengthen capacity for crisis preparedness and response in Sierra Leone and the African continent.The World Health Organization is collaborating with the Africa CDC with Member States to strengthen the response infrastructure.
During the kick off ceremony in Bo on the 24th June,2024,the Deputy Minister of Health of Sierra Leone, Dr.Charles Senessie, stated the training is gear to prepare and equipped health and humanitarians workers for emergency preparedness and response to outbreaks or emergencies in the country.Dr.Senessie told this medium that the government of Sierra Leone is gear to erecting health facilities in every five kilometers in communities for easy accessibility, patient care, quality of care, health workforce availability and equip the health infrastructure for timely pandemic and/or outbreaks response. And his government committed to collaborating with the South-South Collaboration in order to foster disease prevention and preparedness for sudden outbreaks.
During the second phase of the training which occurred at The Place and Mozza resorts on the 21stJuly and ended on the 3rd August,2024 in the capital city of Freetown around the peninsular area; on the certification ceremony, Professor Adebola Olyainka, WHO’s AVoHC-SURGE consultant based in Brazzaville told this medium that: “Sierra Leone is the 20th country in the continent to have completed this training with a turnover of 72 Sierra Leoneans-including 25 women-who successfully completed the training and earned certificates as AVoHC-SURGE Responders.” She asserted that Africa CDC and WHO are targeting 3000 responders in the African continent to serve as standby emergency responders and as African Volunteer Health Corps in Responding to emergencies in the region and across the globe. Adding that African CDC and WHO have teamed up to collectively develop the AVoHC-SURGE roster. And the AVoHC is a brainchild of the Africa CDC’s initiative known as African Volunteer Health Corps-AVoHC; whiles the SURGE is a reference to WHO’s initiative in Strengthening and Utilizing Response Groups for Emergencies-SURGE.
In addition, the WHO and Africa CDC flew in facilitators from Brazzaville, Nigeria, Lesotho, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and some from Sierra Leone to train the participants on different diseases, Vaccines, frontline operations and protracted conflict management, disasters/outbreaks, and humanitarian emergencies skills. The participants were organized into six groups, trained on the aforementioned technical areas and taught how to work as a team in tackling emergencies, carried out simulation drills as a form of manifesting what they have been trained on and to experience how it looks like in real case scenario when outbreaks occur.
During the end of the training that lasted for a month, all the participants’ groups presented tasks given to them in a form of power point presentations to the facilitators and the officials that witnessed the closing ceremony of the program, wherein participant and facilitators earned their certificates for successfully completing the AVoHC-SURGE training in Sierra Leone.
The Dupty Director General of the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA),Mr.John Vandy Rogers, happened to be master of the ceremony, chaired it and stated in his opening remarks that: The training is a hallmark of the threshold in terms of making sure that the processes and procedures are in place in order to fight outbreaks in Sierra Leone. Adding that in the medical history of SL, this is a training in which the GoSL, though NPHA, Africa CDC and WHO had actually taken the country to a path wherein institutions and officials speak with one voice and act together as one; taking into consideration the processes and procedures that we look at in term of fighting public health emergencies. This training is not only meant to benefit Sierra Leone but it is equivalently meant to benefit Africa and other regions in the globe.
He encouraged Participants to leverage on this training and not to see themselves as been trained to satisfy the interest of Sierra Leone, but they were trained to satisfy humanity as outbreaks can occur anywhere around the world and their services are needed to alleviate agonies from humanity.
Further, Dr.Mustapha Jalloh, the Executive Director of the NPHA did a presentation on how the selection of participants was done. He explained the WHO’s three critical thematic areas: Member States to Prepare (PROSE), Detect (TASS) and Response (PROSE) to public health emergencies. Adding that one of the goals of African CDC and WHO in the Afro Region is to train 3000 multi-disciplinary health and/or humanitarian experts and qualify them as AVoHC-SURGE Responders with quota of at least 50 per country. These well trained responders can be deployed within the first 24-48 hours of confirmation of any outbreaks in Africa.
Dr.Jalloh told this medium that: the selection process was a vigorous and challenging process which started with multi-sectorial selection of committee members from Ministry, Department and Agencies (MDAs), Africa CDC and WHO to man the process. He added that the criteria for the selection of participants was adopted from the WHO’s generic criteria. And the interview process was done in two phases: virtual and the in-person interviews at the NPHA and at the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) as participants were asked to bring along all their vital certificates to be verified by the committee members. The participants were selected from various sectors, disciplines and MDAs such as the Environmental and Protection Agency (EPA), Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the National Fire Force (NFF), the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), Ministry of Defense, Immigration, Water Resources, the Office of National Security (ONS), the National and Disaster Management Agency (NDMA),Ministry of Health and from the NPHA.
He pointed out that the participants’ disciplines varies from Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) specialists, Communication experts, Laboratory technicians, Radiation and safety officer, Epidemiologists/Surveillance officers, Nutritionist, Nurses, logisticians, Environmentalists, Agriculturists, Public Health specialists, Physiotherapist, Social workers, Medical and Academic doctors to name but a few from national and at district levels.
Talking to this medium, Dr.Clement Ma’am, the Africa CDC National Coordinator in Sierra Leone representative, told this medium that: “the Africa CDC mandate is working with existing guidelines and partners in strengthening the national public health institutes in each Member State in order to capacitate them in detecting, preparing and responding to any disease threat and/or outbreaks.” He thanked the WHO for collaborating with Africa CDC, the MoH and the GoSL for creating that enabling environment and their collaborations to see that Sierra Leone contributes to what the Heads of State and people are doing. He also applauded the participants for making themselves available, and be ready to be deployed in any part of Africa to response to any public health emergencies. He beseeched them to apply what they had learnt and practice it when the need arise, as diseases and outbreaks don’t inform when and how they will wreak havocs .Therefore, they need to be ready at any pointing time and it start now, not just for Africa but for the world.
Furthermore, the WHO’s country representative who was represented by Dr.Robert Musoke, who also doubles as WHO’s facilitator, retreated that the participants are standby force to retort to any outbreaks or diseases in Sierra Leone, Africa and anywhere around the world; as that will foster swift response to any humanitarian crisis. He assured dignitaries that the participants were trained on Gender-based violence, Sexual Exploitation, Emergency Response, Psychosocial First Aid, Case Management, Risk/Health Communication and Community Engagement, Surveillance, IPC, Rapid Response Team Operations, Logistics, to name but a few. He added that participants were well prepared to management humanitarian crisis and to also manage their psychological state and those of their colleagues during an emergency situation. He thanked the facilitators both local and foreign for their excellent works in knowledge transfer to the participants. And then he assured them that: “their details will be captured and launched into Africa CDC and WHO’s database systems, upon completing the training, the participants will be incorporated to the continental roster of emergency experts to emergencies in SL at the guide of central government with technical aid when and how from African CDC and WHO; and keep in contact with them through regular in-person and virtual meetings.”
Moreover, the Deputy Director of NPHA, Dr.Mohamed Vandi, affirmed that the NPHA is ready to deploy the responders within Sierra Leone and in Africa. He laid emphasize that it is good to bring all specialties from different walk(s) of life to response to public health emergencies as it make it easier and faster to deploy locally in Sierra Leone and in Africa within 24-48 hours as compare to calling on other experts outside the continent of Africa when outbreaks hit. And this is the rationale of the World Health Organization’s 7-1-7 strategy.
Also, the USAID representative in Sierra Leone, Madam Dayo Spencer, stated that: “the United State is committed to global health security and particularly in providing funding for health operators in Sierra Leone in responding to crisis such as outbreaks, Anthrax and the Antimicrobial Resistance threat in the country.” She affirmed that Sierra Leone is one the countries in the globe that is vulnerable to disasters. Therefore, the training is timely to get well trained emergencies responders adding that the trainees should maintain their readiness, be alert, ready to be deployed and serve whenever nature strikes.
Mr.Sandi Athanasius Genda, a Public Health Specialist, who doubles as the United States Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (US CDC) representative and facilitator, stressed on how previous outbreaks such as Ebola and CoVID-19 exposed the fragility of Sierra Leone’s public health system. And those previous outbreaks reminded the country how critical it is to have a robust health workforce. And Sierra Leone must not make the previous mistakes for the next pandemic and/or outbreak strike. He stressed that investing in health workforce with gender inclusivity at national and subnational levels is paramount.Adding that the US CDC is committed to funding the Government of Sierra Leone to achieving the global health security and gender. He thanked the African CDC and WHO who have been steadfast supporters to the NPHA to carry out this training in SL.
Dr.Sevalie who also doubles as a military Colonel, stated that the country has shifted from reactive to proactive approaches in tackling crisis. He stressed on talents and/or knowledge sustainability and asked the officials to retain the AVoHC-SURGE Responders not to lose them to areas. He commended the participants for completing the rigorous training and stated he is sure that whenever nature wreaks its havoc on earth, then these AVoHC-SURGE Responders will be ready to response swiftly.
By and large, Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim Jalloh, who doubles as a Senior Police Officer (AIG) and the astute Director of the Sierra Leone Police Medical Services in Sierra Leone, displayed his leadership traits during the training as he had been one of the team leads and instrumental to the participants and facilitators alongside Dr.Abu B Minah of Panguma hospital, by injecting significant knowledge insights, sharing their rich experiences in the medical field and by liaising with WHO’s facilitators to coordinate and manage the participants’ welfare throughout the four weeks in Bo, at The Place and Mozza resorts, respectively. He commended both the participants and the facilitators for an outstanding accomplishment as he gave the vote of thanks and presented a gift to the WHO’s Afro Regional Consultant, Professor Adebola Olyainka.
It could be recalled that similar cohort of AVoHC-SURGE trainings had been conducted in several countries in the WHO’s Afro-Regions such as in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Lesotho etc, in November to December,2023 and in May,2024.
