The Kenema District Council in collaboration with the District Health Management Team (DHMT) with support from the European Union is conducting a four day training of the COVID-19 Rapid Response Team on contact tracing, monitoring and implementation of community level surveillance mechanisms as a support to civil society organisations and local authorities for local development in Sierra Leone at the Kenema District Council hall on Nyandeyama Road.
The training brought together community health workers (CHW) from the 16 chiefdoms of Kenema District, with 20 participants per day as a way of observing COVID-19 rules and regulations. Facilitator Josephus Campbell, who also doubles as the Community Health Worker Focal Person at the District Health Management Team, Kenema, said the training is geared to ensuring the safety of CHWs and the community with the aim of breaking the COVID-19 transmission in the district and the nation as a whole. He therefore called on participants to give all the seriousness the training deserves.
Ibrahim Wurie, District Quarantine Manager, Kenema disclosed that before now the district encountered a series of bitter experiences in the COVID-19 fight, adding that Kenema District was one of the hotspots in the fight against the pandemic. He described the job as challenging, adding, “The sooner you associate someone with the virus, the battle then opens.”
He said they are training the participants so that when they go back to their communities they will know how to manage the situation, saying some victims attack and use abusive languages on health workers. “Therefore the essence of the training is to equip participants on how to resist humiliation and intimidation in the field.”
He said as of now Kenema District has scored a very high mark in bringing COVID-19 under control, adding that in the months of April, May and June 2020 the disease was very high in Kenema district. He said Kenema District recorded 187 cases that entered quarantine homes in and out of the city, citing Malegohun, Kandu Leppiama, Lower Bambara and Tunkia Chiefdoms.
Kenema District, he disclosed, has one person in a quarantine home and two in the treatment centre, which shows that the surveillance team and contact tracers are doing their work. He called on all not to discriminate against those that are discharged from the treatment centre, and disclosed that a discharge package of dry rations such as rice, oil, salt, Maggie and others is given to the discharged victim, “hoping that in future more will be done for them”.
In his statement during the opening session of the training, the Chairman of the Kenema District Council, Mohamed O’Level Amadu Sesay, described participants as frontline workers for whom “no amount of money is enough to pay for the sacrifice they are making for their communities”, adding that everyone appreciates them. He said the training will continue to arm them to save their lives first, before saving another person’s life.
Some of the topics covered include: Basic facts on coronavirus and COVID-19; Definition of contact and contact tracing; Adapting contact tracing strategies for a changing epidemic; How can contacts be best identified; Contact tracing and follow up process; Recommended contact tracing activity by epidemic phase; Steps involved in contact tracing; Daily contact monitoring/follow up forms for tracers; and Protecting yourself and community.
By Saffa B. Moriba in Kenema