By Nakitandwe Rebecca Melisa
Population Movement Across Border (POPCAB) assessments indicate that border districts in Uganda are at a higher risk of exposure to infectious diseases such as Ebola Virus Disease and COVID-19. In Uganda, majority of the first COVID-19 confirmed cases were truck drivers intercepted at Points of Entry (POEs). As such, health facilities and other community locations along truck routes and border crossings are at risk. Yet a 2019 global baseline UNICEF report indicated that 1 in 4 healthcare facilities lack basic water, 1 in 5 have no sanitation, 42% lack hand hygiene at the point of care, and 40% lack systems to segregate waste.
With funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Infectious Diseases Institute-IDI/CDC Alcohol-Based Hand Rub (ABHR) Project within the IHR Global Health Security Program (GHSP) began operations in border districts with a goal to increase access to handwashing facilities and ABHR use in health facilities and community locations along truck routes and border crossings.
A prior POPCAB assessment conducted in Amuru district by the project identified 4 health facilities and 22 community locations including checkpoints, locations within the POE, markets, guest houses, and schools as priority locations. These were earmarked to be supported by the project for a year. A baseline assessment was conducted on the identified locations prior to the intervention.
The IDI CDC ABHR project team held a stakeholder meeting with Amuru district leadership and community location leaders to introduce the project activities in the district as well as disseminate findings of the assessments conducted. The intervention package, which includes the provision of ABHR, handwashing stations/refurbishing any existing broken ones, IEC materials as well as onsite infection prevention/hygiene and sanitation training, was discussed followed by a tour of the ABHR production unit already established by IDI at the Amuru District Headquarters in a space provided by the district. For sustainability, IDI will build capacity of four district staff in the production, distribution, and quality control of ABHR.
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