By Mohamed Souire Bangura
In a bid to strengthen capacity for crisis preparedness and response in Sierra Leone and the African continent, 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) have recently completed one month training for 72 Sierra Leoneans-including 25 women as African Volunteer for Health Corps SURGE (AVoHC-SURGE) Responders.
The training was facilitated by experts 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 emergency skills.
The African Volunteer for Health Corps SURGE (first phase) training was launched in Bo city, Sierra Leone on the 24th June,2024.
Presenting on how the selection of participants was done, the Executive Director of the NPHA, Dr. Mustapha Jalloh, explained that the participants were selected from various sectors, disciplines and MDAs such as the Environmental 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 explained 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.
He pointed out that the participants’ disciplines vary 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.
During the closing ceremony of the second phase which was held at The Place and Mozza resorts from the 21stJuly to August 3rd, 2024 in Freetown, the WHO’s AVoHC-SURGE consultant based in Brazzaville, Professor Adebola Olayinka said that Sierra Leone is the 20th country in the continent to have completed the training.
She stated 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.
She said that 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 his opening remarks as Master of the Ceremony, the Deputy Director General of the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), Mr. John Vandy Rogers said that the training was a hallmark of the threshold in terms of making sure that processes and procedures were in place to fight disease outbreaks in Sierra Leone.
He said the training was not only meant to benefit Sierra Leone, but it was equivalent to benefit Africa and other regions of the globe.
The Africa CDC National Coordinator in Sierra Leone, Dr. Clement Ma’am said that the Africa CDC’s mandate is to work with existing guidelines and partners in strengthening the national public health institutes in each Member State to aid them with the capacity to detect, prepare for and respond to threats of diseases and/or outbreaks.
He also applauded the participants for making themselves available, and for being ready to be deployed in any part of Africa to respond to any public health emergency.
He begged them to apply and practise what they had learnt when the need arises, as diseases and outbreaks do not give early warning of time and nature of the havoc they wreck on people.
He recognized the need for a constant state of readiness at any point in time and “it starts now, not just for Africa but for the world.”
Furthermore, the WHO Country Representative who was represented by Dr. Robert Musoke, who also doubled as facilitator disclosed 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 manage humanitarian crises and their psychological impact during emergency situation.
He thanked the local and international facilitators both for an excellent work in transferring knowledge to the participants, assuring them that “their details will be captured and launched into Africa CDC and WHO’s database. Upon completing the training, the participants will be incorporated to the continental roster of emergency experts to emergencies in Sierra Leone at the guide of central government with technical aid when and how from Africa 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 as this is the rationale of the World Health Organization’s 7-1-7 strategy.
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.
He said that those previous outbreaks reminded the country how critical it is to have a robust health workforce, noting that 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.
He said that the US CDC is committed to funding the Government of Sierra Leone to achieve the global health security and gender.
Dr. Sevalie, also 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.
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.
The training was climaxed with group presentation by the participants’ and the certification of participants and facilitators for successfully completing the AVoHC-SURGE training in Sierra Leone.
PHOTO: (L-R) Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim Jalloh handed over a gift [Sierra Leone traditional outfit] to Prof. Adebola Olyainka, in the center with the traditional outfit