CAF-Africa Partners, including Muso, celebrate the arrival of PPE in Côte d’Ivoire.
Community Health Workers (CHWs) are essential workers serving on the frontlines of care delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. CHWs are well placed to identify suspected COVID cases, administer tests, and lead contract tracing; but they must be equipped and protected to do so safely. Due to lack of PPE in many low-income and middle-income countries, CHWs in many countries are being told to either stay home or keep working without protection.
Workers unload the PPE, which arrived in late September.
In early August, Muso joined a group of 30 leading community health development partners to launch the COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa (CAF-Africa). This initiative is helmed by a secretariat that includes Direct Relief, CHIC, VillageReach, Pandemic Action Network, and the Community Health Acceleration Partnership (CHAP), and seeks to procure and distribute 400 million pieces of PPE to equip one million CHWs and frontline providers in 24 African countries during the pandemic.
To protect the nearly 11,400 CHWs delivering health care in Côte d’Ivoire, Muso worked with our partners in the Department of Community Health and the Ministry of Health to forecast and map PPE needs for CHWs. We then liaised with the CAF-Africa Fund to procure three months of PPE, including masks, gloves, and face shields, for delivery to Côte d’Ivoire. In partnership with VillageReach, Muso delivered the first installment of PPE to the Ministry of Health, which included 1,120,000 masks, at an official ceremony at the headquarters of the New Public Health Pharmacy (NPSP) of Côte d’Ivoire on September 28.
The NPSP will lead distribution of these life-saving items in the months and weeks to come. Muso, the Ivorian Department of Community Health, and VillageReach will continue to collaborate to ensure all materials reach the CHWs so they may continue to care for patients while protecting themselves and others from the spread of COVID-19.
Côte d’Ivoire’s Health Director General, Dr. Mahamadou Samba, shares the importance of protection and vigilance in the COVID-19 pandemic in a television interview announcing the arrival of the PPE.
News of the PPE’s arrival was announced on national Ivorian news network RTI:
At a moment when we are all vulnerable, acts of radical collaboration like CAF-Africa show us that we have the power to ensure communities are protected and our health systems are resilient enough to overcome the current crisis.