Protecting and empowering COVID-19 frontline health workers: how are we doing it?”

Wednesday, 23 September 2020

Target audience:

• MediLabSecure and MediPIET focal points, supervisors, fellows, external participants and interested experts involved in the COVID-19 epidemic management.
• Experts from international and national organizations and institutions were invited to participate in order to provide expert opinion and enrich the discussions.

PRESENTATIONS

Session description

A. Welcome and introduction to the programme and objectives

A brief welcome and introduction to the workshop and its objectives

B. Keynote presentation. The COVID-19 response Nigeria: putting health security on the agenda, and keeping it there.

Nigeria is the largest country by population size in Sub-Saharan Africa. The population density, tropical climate, poor socio-economic indicators and other factors put us at high risk of infectious disease outbreaks.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent need to increase investment in health security following years of under-investment. In this presentation, Nigeria response in the last seven months, lessons learned from the pandemic and how they are building back better for stronger health security were discussed. It was also discussed the critical role that national public health institutes have in contributing to global health security

C. Discussion and feedback on the distance learning module on “Novel Coronavirus (Sars-CoV-2) health emergency: Preparedness and Response”

Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in December 2019 and the further spread worldwide, the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, ISS) developed an e-learning course for healthcare professionals titled ‘Novel Coronavirus (Sars-CoV-2) Health Emergency: Preparedness and Response’. This course, originally designed to be used in Italy, was adapted to be used in the context of MediLabSecure and other interested countries. During this session participants provided feedback and discussed on this training, its utilization and usefulness as well as its strong and weak points.

D. Prospective study on COVID-19 evaluation risk among the healthcare workers in charge of the first cases in Africa

According to the WHO recommendations to establish a cohort study on healthcare workers, MediLabSecure has implemented a multicentric surveillance and impact study in Africa. During this session, the objectives, methodology and the preliminary outcomes on the study were presented.

E. Session 1: “National COVID-19 training strategies, challenges and solutions”

During an emergency, and especially during this COVID-19 pandemic, many challenges can hamper the training of the staff (i.e. residential training discouraged, very busy staff, continuously and rapidly evolving situation, information and knowledge, etc.). How are we adapting our training strategies and how are we copying with the challenges faced? Some of the questions addressed were:

b) Which methods and materials were used (e.g. ECDC, WHO, MLS/ISS, locally developed)?

c) What have been the main constraints and challenges and what solutions were found?

F. Session 2: “Strategies for the protection of healthcare personnel and patients and the role of primary care staff in the prevention and identification of cases during the COVID-19 pandemic, challenges and
solutions”

The health of healthcare staff and hence their protection is of paramount importance during an outbreak, especially of respiratory nature. In this aspect, the COVID-19 pandemic poses many challenges, stresses the health systems and jeopardises the trust of the community causing direct and indirect consequences to the health of the population. Some of the questions discussed were:

Additionally, necessary measures need to be implemented to protect the health of patients and ealthcare workers (e.g. General Practitioners, nurses, ambulance and support staff, etc.) working in medical practices or operating at community level. Community engagement is the first line of defence n the battle against infectious diseases in China. GPs are both gatekeepers and health promoters by empowering the community to build a firewall against the deadly virus. GPs are engaged in all three phases of the response: in phase 1, they help block the viral transmission by monitoring people at designated checkpoints; in phase 2, they slow the increase of cases by treating patients and providing medical surveillance in the community; in phase 3, they take care of the clinical and psychological well – being of patients and extend that to their families, so the whole community can return to normal life, as soon as practical (source: SKT Li and S Zhu, 2020).

Some of the topics discussed on this aspect were:

a) How are General Practitioners (GPs) and other community healthcare workers engaged in the COVID-19 response in your country in regards to COVID-19 prevention, identification of cases and monitoring of the situation?

b) What are other strategies implemented in your community settings?

c) What protection measures have been taken to prevent community healthcare workers from being infected and how effective have they been?