CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19)
Response in Africa
Burundi
The Burundi country mission closed in January 2021. Before the country mission closed, International Medical Corps worked closely with Burundi’s Ministry of Health (MoH) and other key stakeholders for a number of years to protect the country from public health emergencies of international concern and leveraged these preparedness activities to support the country’s COVID-19 contingency plans. Our team activated 10 COVID-19 steering committees in 10 health districts and trained rapid response teams (RRTs), establishing district-based coordination in the provinces of Muyinga, Ngozi, Kirundo and Kayanza, bordering Rwanda and Tanzania. With support from International Medical Corps staff from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Burundi mission provided training on COVID-19 for almost 600 healthcare providers, and provided training-of-trainers sessions for an additional 67 MoH personnel. The country team has helped the government conduct screening and follow-up at Bujumbura International Airport, examining incoming passengers from countries with confirmed cases of COVID-19, and it has provided training on COVID-19 risk communication to more than 1,000 health and non-health personnel at the airport and at the hotels where suspected cases are quarantined. In addition, our Burundi team helped the MoH expand COVID-19 response capacity at the provincial level, strengthening training committees, setting up district RRTs, and improving infection prevention and control (IPC) and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) conditions in health facilities, including five provincial hospitals—in Cibitoke, Ngozi, Gitega, Karuzi and Makamba—as well as refugee camps and points of entry. We constructed COVID-19 triage units at five provincial hospitals and equipped them with hygiene materials, including handwashing stations and soap. Since late February 2020, International Medical Corps trained 458 frontline staff, supported 303 primary health facilities and 16 hospitals with COVID-19 supplies, and reached 2,175 community members through COVID-19 awareness-raising activities. In addition, through a local partner, International Medical Corps conducted community outreach and education programs through engagement with religious and administrative leaders, supported the broadcast of COVID-19 prevention messages through five community radio stations, completed infection prevention and control (IPC) training for 69 participants and printed 240 copies of COVID-19 policies and protocols. The Burundi team also implemented a COVID-19 response in densely populated Gitega province to provide IPC and personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies, on-the-job training, community awareness-raising and facilitation of a COVID-19 steering committee to strengthen response coordination. In total, since late February, our Burundi team reached nearly 1.8 million indirect beneficiaries, distributed 3,293 bars of soap and installed 59 handwashing stations.
Cameroon
International Medical Corps has been responding to COVID-19 in Cameroon by screening patients, training healthcare workers on prevention and treatment, raising awareness in refugee camps of COVID-19 and how to prevent it, and distributing PPE to frontline health staff. Since March 2020, our team has been implementing a COVID-19 response and prevention project in the Minawao refugee camp in the Far North, which hosts more than 60,000 refugees, and where malnutrition is widespread. Since June 2020, teams at the camp have reached 4,346 people with education on infant and young-child feeding practices in the COVID-19 context and reached 7,835 people with cooking demonstrations to help mothers and caregivers prevent malnutrition in their children during the pandemic. To further improve COVID-19 healthcare services, we rehabilitated one of the two health centers in Minawao camp, to increase the availability of consultation rooms and strengthen patient-screening capabilities. Through 2022, we also supported the mental health of patients affected by COVID-19 through counseling, home visits, case management and referrals to specialized care. Our health teams have so far screened 16,850 patients for COVID-19 and reached 331,046 people with COVID-prevention messaging. The mission has distributed 57,068 hygiene and PPE items to community health workers and frontline staff in the Far North, North and East regions. The team has worked with the Ministry of Health (MoH) to develop the communications strategy and materials for a COVID-19 vaccination campaign, and continues to support the MoH in its COVID-19 vaccination rollout and sensitization efforts by training government health staff and providing logistical support. The mission provided rental vehicles, fuel, logistics and human resource support for the “national intensification phase” of Cameroon’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign in July 2021, and supported another intensification campaign, in November 2021, through which 3,972 people were vaccinated in Minawao and Mora. From December 22, 2021, to February 21, 2022, International Medical Corps also organized mass vaccination campaigns in the Minawao refugee camp and in the Mora health district, in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health. Through this campaign, we vaccinated 3,922 people. To date, International Medical Corps has supplied 7,838 vaccine doses and directly administered 1,805 doses.
Central African Republic
Since March 2020, International Medical Corps has been supporting CAR’s COVID-19 response, after being asked by the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) to lead CAR’s Community Engagement Committee, a consortium that also includes Oxfam, the Danish Refugee Council and Concern Worldwide. Activities began in Bangui and its major corridors, targeting more than 373,500 community members to strengthen response capacity for COVID-19 detection at the primary healthcare level, improve community hygiene activities and improve psychosocial support for infected patients and their communities. The program also targeted children who live on the streets, benefitting a very large and vulnerable portion of CAR’s urban youth. International Medical Corps has so far supported nine treatment centers in hospital settings, distributed 157,044 pieces of PPE and reached 990,088 community members through COVID-19 awareness-raising activities, all through traditional, face-to-face methods. We have screened 407,953 patients for COVID-19, with 3,730 patients identified as suspected COVID-19 cases. In addition, since the pandemic began, we have trained 594 frontline health workers and supported 14 health facilities and six response coordination bodies. Activities also began on a program aiming to build upon existing local-response capabilities to ensure coordinated and complementary activities for the community and most vulnerable. These include preparedness and response support for COVID-19 health services at the Bria, Bambari and Birao health centers and hospitals by setting up a screening room for triage and isolation of patients, providing case management through a 20-bed inpatient facility at each hospital, and procuring PPE, pharmaceuticals, and medical supplies and equipment. International Medical Corps is supporting the Ministry of Health through ground-level support to healthcare staff, as well as logistics support. This support includes providing vaccine cold-chain infrastructure, including 25 solar-powered vaccine freezers. International Medical Corps is also supporting activities that strengthen risk communication and community engagement around COVID-19. In August 2022, International Medical Corps supported Ministry of Health mass vaccination campaigns, including for polio and a third round of COVID-19 vaccines. These vaccinated 31,240 people (4,322 in Bria, 8,823 in Vakaga health district, 10,366 in Bambari health district and 7,729 in Grimari health district).
Chad
The Chad country mission closed in June 2020. Before the closing, International Medical Corps completed a two-month project responding to COVID-19 at Chad’s UNION district hospital in Ndjamena. Our team trained 50 Ministry of Health staff on how to use PPE, how to detect COVID-19 symptoms and triage patients, and how to implement IPC measures. In addition, our team provided 10,060 non-sterile gloves, 600 gowns, 1,240 pieces of soap, 120 units of bleach, 650 face masks, 10 bottles of hand sanitizer gel and 20 pairs of protective scrubs to the hospital.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Since the beginning of the pandemic, International Medical Corps has helped the MoH curb the spread of the virus by enabling COVID-19 screening for almost 2.1 million people and training 4,326 frontline staff and community health workers on COVID-19 case management and infection prevention and control (IPC). We have reached more than 1.2 million community members through both traditional means of communication, such as awareness-raising activities, as well as remote measures, such as COVID-19 prevention messages disseminated through SMS, radio, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook. The DRC mission also has distributed 299,302 hygiene and PPE items. We are currently supporting 146 hospitals and health centers across eastern DRC. Though rumors and misinformation have hampered the vaccine rollout in the DRC, International Medical Corps has supported the Ministry of Health (MoH) in administering more than 6,020,452 vaccination doses. To further support vaccination efforts, our team in the DRC has helped train 35 risk-communication and community-engagement workers at COVID-19 vaccination sites in South Kivu province. In North and South Kivu, we also briefed 132 community leaders and volunteers on COVID-19 vaccination, enabling them to better engage with their communities and peers. In addition, our team conducted 30 community information sessions through home visits, educational talks, community meetings and presentations at places of worship.
South Sudan
International Medical Corps is managing the only Infectious Disease Unit in Juba, dedicated to isolating and treating COVID-19 patients. We are screening and testing for COVID-19.
Libya
Members of our Libya team train staff members of the Libya's National Center for Disease Control in Tripoli on symptoms and treatments of COVID-19 and how to use PPE to protect themselves.
Mali
Regular disinfection of some public places in the city of Timbuktu including 10 mosques and eight health facilities. These are public places with frequent daily traffic which, in the absence of regular disinfection, could constitute places with a high spread of the disease.
Nigeria
Woman sewing face masks for community residents at one of several women-friendly spaces (WFS) we operate in Northeastern Nigeria where women and girls can gather, socialize, participate in skill-building activities and receive protection information. If needed, visitors can also seek help and receive individualized case management and support services.
Somalia
Handwashing training in Somalia.
Ethiopia
Since the beginning of the pandemic, International Medical Corps has continued to provide programs to beneficiaries in the Gambella, Oromia and Somalia regions, covering health, nutrition, gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and support, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). The mental health team has conducted stress-management workshops for government staff in refugee camps, while the sexual and reproductive health team has focused on educating youth and adolescents on the virus by providing a variety of messages in local languages. Our GBV teams have provided briefings on how to prevent COVID-19, ensuring safety during in-person activities, such as information sessions, group psychosocial support, skill-building sessions for survivors and others at women- and girl-friendly spaces. The nutrition team also has focused on measures to slow the spread of the virus—including frequent handwashing, maintaining physical distancing and wearing face masks—while continuing to provide services safely. Since we began our COVID-19 response in March 2020, International Medical Corps-supported facilities have screened 493,317 patients for the virus, and identified 862 suspected cases. We have trained 3,134 frontline workers on COVID-19 modules. The country team continues to participate in national COVID-19 coordination meetings with different groups, including the national government and other implementing partners, and has supported 242 government health facilities, distributed 260,723 PPE and IPC items, and reached 795,753 community members with COVID-19 awareness-raising activities through traditional (face-to-face) methods. We also have reached more than 2.37 million people indirectly with COVID-19 awareness messaging.
Libya
When the pandemic struck, International Medical Corps mobilized quickly to address the COVID-19 threat, teaching rapid response teams at the country’s National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) about the virus, its symptoms, prevention, transmission and treatment, how to conduct contact tracing and how to use PPE. International Medical Corps was the first international NGO operating in the country to support the NCDC by deploying medical teams to help NCDC’s rapid response team in contact tracing, swabbing and distributing information by responding to the NCDC call center and donating PPE for its rapid response teams. Currently, International Medical Corps continues to screen beneficiaries for COVID-19 in 22 health facilities through four mobile teams in Misrata, Sabha and Tripoli. Since March 2020, the country team has distributed 2,294,482 PPE items and trained 2,217 medical and paramedical staff members to respond to suspected cases of COVID-19. From June 2020 to December 2021, International Medical Corps supported five hospitals in Benghazi, Misrata, Sabha and Tripoli with isolation units, to extend their intensive-care units’ physical and operational capacity and for effective management of COVID-19 cases. Support continued in Sabha until September 2022. Our community health workers continue to provide COVID-19 awareness sessions to migrants and refugees in Misrata and Tripoli. We continue to provide COVID-19 awareness messages on a country-specific Facebook page, with more than 1 million shared posts.
Mali
In Mali, our teams continue to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Timbuktu and Ségou by training health staff, disinfecting health facilities and public places, and distributing medicine and WASH supplies. We so far have reached 120 health facilities with COVID-19 activities and trained 192 frontline staff on COVID-19 treatment and prevention. To date, 598 people have been screened for COVID-19 at facilities supported by International Medical Corps. As part of the national COVID-19 taskforce of the Health Cluster, International Medical Corps’ Mali team meets regularly with governmental counterparts in the capital, Bamako, to determine needs and provide technical support, collaborating with such partners as the WHO and UNICEF. The team also has worked with the Ministry of Health to fully disinfect 10 mosques, six community health centers, one referral health center and one regional hospital in Timbuktu. Subsequently, we provided WASH kits to these 18 facilities, along with two women’s centers that provide gender-based violence (GBV) support. In Ségou, our team has distributed handwashing materials to 19 health clinics and 39 public sites, and launched COVID-19 activities in 19 communities in the San health district, including prevention education and the distribution of hygiene supplies. International Medical Corps health volunteers have reached 17,677 people with COVID-19 information since March 2020. To ensure the safety of volunteers and frontline health staff in Mali, International Medical Corps has provided 62,412 PPE and hygiene items. The mission also recently completed training-of-trainers sessions in Bamako to establish rapid response teams to improve the response to regional outbreaks of COVID-19. International Medical Corps’ mission in Mali has carried out key activities to support COVID-19 vaccination efforts, including providing COVID-19 vaccine awareness-raising sessions for 205 health workers, 118 community leaders and 1,648 other community members; training 115 health personnel on techniques for administering the different types of vaccines deployed in Mali; and distributing materials and technical guidance on COVID-19 vaccination in 36 health facilities and within the community. During the vaccination campaign organized in August 2021, the 36 health facilities supported by International Medical Corps vaccinated 12,492 people. Currently, International Medical Corps continues to educate communities in anticipation of additional national efforts toward increasing infection prevention protocols in health settings.
Nigeria
Since the start of the pandemic in Nigeria, International Medical Corps has been responding to COVID-19 by training community volunteers on IPC and referral pathways for health services, and serving on the national COVID-19 taskforce. To date, we have trained 4,123 frontline staff, screened 22,089 patients for COVID-19 and reached 1,360,590 people with COVID-19 messaging. The Nigeria team, which continues to target more than 400,000 direct and almost 300,000 indirect beneficiaries, also has delivered 99,746 PPE items since the beginning of our response. Our WASH team has collaborated with other humanitarian partners to distribute 9,018 bars of soap to households and has put in place an additional 107 handwashing stations in IDP camps. Our nutrition team continues to provide services through 15 outpatient therapeutic programs, providing COVID-19 prevention messages during nutrition screenings for 24,675 children. In addition, we reached 124,859 caregivers in Borno and Kano states with messaging on polio and COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as hygiene promotion. International Medical Corps has supported the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Nigeria, within Kano and Borno states. Our teams have participated in COVID-19 coordination meetings, provided monitoring and supervision services and engaged with religious and traditional leaders and with women’s groups. To increase demand for the vaccine, International Medical Corps has engaged with community members to raise awareness.
Somalia
In Somalia, International Medical Corps is coordinating its response to COVID-19 through the Ministry of Health (MoH) at both the federal and regional government levels and is a member of Somalia’s Inter-Agency Risk Communication and Community Engagement Taskforce. International Medical Corps supports 43 health facilities in four of Somalia’s 18 regions and continues to screen people for signs of the virus. Since we began our COVID-19 response in March 2020, we have screened 514,465 people for COVID-19, reached 730,522 people through COVID-19 awareness-raising activities and distributed 335,144 PPE and IPC items to frontline health workers. International Medical Corps supports the COVID-19 isolation center at Galkacyo South Hospital. Together with MoH staff, International Medical Corps engaged key community influencers to help raise awareness and correct misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines. We have also been operating toll-free phone lines at our field sites, enabling community residents to receive accurate messages and information about COVID-19. International Medical Corps has also supported COVID-19 vaccine rollout activities in Galkacyo since September 2021. To promote the government’s vaccine rollout campaign, we recruited staff for both mobile teams and fixed facilities and provided cold-chain support to four health facilities in South Mudug. We recruited and trained 36 community health workers (CHWs) and 110 female health workers (FHWs). Our team also conducted training for 60 healthcare workers from health facilities, outreach teams, CHWs and FHWs on COVID-19 vaccine administration, storage, waste management, infection prevention and control measures, adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines and AEFI monitoring. Since we started supporting COVID-19 vaccine rollout activities in Galkacyo, we have administered COVID-19 vaccine doses to 14,316 people—4,309 of which were fully vaccinated and 9,967 were partially vaccinated) and provided cold-chain support to four health facilities. In total, 4,309 people have been fully vaccinated at International Medical Corps-supported facilities. During the same month, we also supplied vaccine carriers to support COVID-19 vaccine transportation to hard-to-reach areas and medical drugs to counter minor side effects of vaccines, including paracetamol, hydrocortisone, loratadine and PPE items. To enhance access to the COVID-19 vaccine, International Medical Corps also facilitated the transportation of at-risk populations (elders, people with disabilities, and people living with chronic diseases) from Galkayo IDP camps to COVID-19 vaccination sites to be vaccinated. Through this initiative, 203 people were transported and vaccinated, including 21 people with disabilities, 47 people with diabetes, 42 people with hypertension and 93 elderly people.
South Sudan
International Medical Corps continues to lead the pandemic response in South Sudan, serving as co-lead of the COVID-19 Case Management and IPC Technical Working Group, which is part of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Group. We also helped develop the National Case Management Strategy, based on WHO and CDC protocols. We helped the Ministry of Health (MoH) develop its COVID-19 National Preparedness and Response Plan, and its COVID-19 National Vaccination Deployment Plan. International Medical Corps supports the MoH in managing the main COVID-19 treatment facility at Dr. John Garang Infectious Disease Unit (IDU) in Juba. We established a Level 1 intensive-care unit (ICU) at the Dr. John Garang IDU, the first ever ICU in the country accessible to the public. To date, we have trained 393 healthcare workers on critical care, standard IPC precautions, safe patient transportation, psychological first aid (PFA), pharmaceutical care, rational dispensing practice, medical and PPE logistics, and COVID-19 vaccine preparedness. In addition, we have provided 52 healthcare staff with supportive supervision and mentoring and have reached 169,708 people with risk communication messages. We are supporting the MoH’s COVID-19 vaccine deployment plan. In total, 11,309 people have been fully vaccinated at International Medical Corps-supported facilities, our team has trained 228 health workers on vaccine administration and provided cold-chain support to 84 health facilities. We also reached 170,015 people with vaccine promotion messages through group discussions and educational materials.
Sudan
International Medical Corps is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in five of the country’s 18 states—West Darfur, South Darfur, Central Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile—providing lifesaving, integrated services, including health, nutrition and WASH, in 71 health facilities and one mobile clinic. We continue to support coordination meetings led by the respective state ministries of health and attended by the various stakeholders involved in the COVID-19 response. From January to March 2022, International Medical Corps screened 17,449 people for signs of the virus, and have screened 282,256 people since we began our COVID-19 response in March 2020. International Medical Corps continues daily COVID-19 messaging at targeted health facilities. Since March 2020, we have reached more than 1.4 million people directly and almost 2 million people indirectly with COVID-19 messaging, and distributed 262,574 PPE and IPC items. We have provided training sessions on various topics related to COVID-19, including surveillance, IPC and case management to 1,908 people. International Medical Corps is helping the state Ministry of Health in South Darfur rollout COVAX initiatives. Our support includes transporting COVID-19 vaccines, providing cold-chain support, providing training on vaccination protocols, cold-chain and supply-chain management, data entry and data protection, and mobilizing the community. So far, we have supported 10 coordination meetings and seven vaccination campaigns in 14 localities in South Darfur since November 2021. As of October 20, 2022, 4,424 people have been fully vaccinated at International Medical Corps-supported facilities, our team has trained 172 health workers on vaccine administration and provided cold-chain support to 42 health facilities. International Medical Corps has trained 172 people on COVID-19 vaccination protocols.
Zimbabwe
In August 2021, International Medical Corps began a new COVID-19 intervention in Zimbabwe focused on hygiene promotion and improving access to safe water. The program aims to train 61 healthcare workers in 17 health facilities; rehabilitate 26 water points; train water point committees and pump minders; and establish 80 community health clubs. Between March 2019 and April 2020, International Medical Corps implemented two COIVD-19 projects in Zimbabwe. In the first, we provided WASH and community hygiene promotion activities for more than 31,000 people in Binga, one of the most impoverished, marginalized districts in Zimbabwe, which faces severe water scarcity due to years of drought. In the second, which we implemented across three provinces, we targeted 17 health facilities, aiming to rehabilitate WASH facilities within COVID-19 isolation areas. Through our seven-year Amalima Project, completed in July 2020, our team and their partners collaborated with the Ministry of Health and Child Care to develop educational materials for communities about the COVID-19 pandemic. The program developed 100,000 fliers and 12,000 posters for communities in Bulilima, Mangwe, Gwanda and Tsholotsho on COVID-19 prevention. Those materials have been widely distributed in partnership with more than 300 community health workers who serve in vulnerable communities. We also helped provide 300 bicycles for these community health workers—enabling them to more easily reach remote areas with COVID-19 messaging—as well as 6,000 reusable masks. International Medical Corps has supported three treatment centers and 14 hospitals, which have screened 143,918 patients for COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic, our Zimbabwe mission has trained 487 frontline staff, provided COVID-19 awareness-raising activities for 234,729 community members and reached 1.23 million people indirectly with messaging. Since July 2020, we have distributed 87,280 PPE and IPC items.
