COVID-19 Response

Amref Health Africa has engaged in a series of efforts to support the federal, regional, zonal, and woreda level governments in COVID-19 response through close coordination and collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, and Regional Health Bureaus.

 

Our COVID-19 interventions support response activities in a total of 94 woredas across eight regional and administrative states. We have prioritized coordination and collaboration, streamlining efforts through taskforces and joint response committees; risk communication and community engagement, mobilizing volunteers and health workers to disseminate key COVID-19 messaging to over 2 million through campaigns and door to door outreach; community and facility-based surveillance, digitally training nearly 20,000 health extension workers and 1,600 supervisors for screening, referral, and case tracking, and developing and launching interoperable surveillance tools for health systems; and infection prevention and control (IPC) disseminating IPC guidelines and trainings to health facilities and more than 500 health workers, providing PPE to over 150 facilities and 10,000 individuals, building sanitation facilities in schools for over 15,000 students, and securing water points for handwashing in health facilities and communities reaching nearly 35,000 individuals.

 

The fragility of the health landscape in Ethiopia has revealed that the public health infrastructure, now, perhaps more than ever before, is leaning on the support of partners like Amref Health Africa to address critical gaps in emergency preparedness and to respond vigorously to COVID-19

Overview of Our COVID -19 Initiative Projects

Strengthening Health Systems for COVID -19 Response in Developing Regions

With the support of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), this project’s goal is to prevent catastrophic impacts due to the COVID -19 pandemic on internally displaced populations and their host communities, focusing on mothers and children in 40 woredas across Afar, Benishangul, Gambella and Somali regions.


COVID-19 Response in Afar, Amhara and SNNP Regions

Supported by Global Affairs Canada, this COVID -19 project aims to slow the spread of COVID-19 by providing PPE to health workers and health facilities; rapidly deploying water and sanitation supplies, such as handwashing stations; training health workers on COVID -19 prevention and treatment; and providing COVID -19 education within communities, targeting five woredas in Afar, Amhara and SNNP regions.


Transform Health in Developing Regions COVID-19 Response

Through the activation of the crisis modifier fund of USAID’s Transform Health in Developing Regions activity, this response aims to safeguard longstanding investments in maternal and child health in developing regional states, and protecting gains from sliding back as a result of the COVID -19 pandemic by enabling the continuity of the provision and utilization of essential maternal and child health services. This initiative supports the emergency preparedness and response capacity of the Regional Health Bureaus (RHBs) in Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, and Somali, while covering implementation in 58 woredas.


LEAP – Mobile-based Learning Platform for Health Extension Workers

To enable health extension workers (HEWs) to provide an effective and timely community-level COVID-19 response, Amref Health Africa and the Ministry of Health (MoH) jointly rolled out the LEAP initiative in May 2020. LEAP is a mobile learning platform being used to train HEW across Ethiopia to increase their knowledge and skills to help contain and prevent the spread of COVID-19. As of 31st October, 21,332 HEWs have been enrolled, of which 95% have completed the training. This initiative is supported by multiple donors.

Key COVID-19 Response Achievements

  • Over two million-people reached with our community awareness campaign on COVID -19 prevention measures in several areas of the country
  • Over 150 health centres, treatment, isolation and quarantine centres received personal protective equipment, hygiene and sanitation supplies, and handwashing facilities
  • More than 500 health workers trained on IPC
  • More than 10,000 communities received hygiene and sanitation supplies (hand sanitizer, hand soap, facemasks and more)
  • More than 900 young volunteers engaged for community outreach, raising the awareness of vulnerable communities
  • Nearly 16,000 health extension workers and 1500 supervisors trained on COVID -19 response - early prevention, case detection and referral
  • 35,000 have access to handwashing facilities through the provision of plastic water reservoirs and plastic hand-washing stands

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