LUSAKA, ZAMBIA – The COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa (CAF-Africa), an international coalition of non-governmental organizations, partnered with Amref Health Africa in Zambia (AMREF) and the Ministry of Health Zambia to procure and deliver almost 2.8 million pieces of PPE to Zambia’s community health workers.
“The reality on the ground is that PPE is not available to all healthcare workers, especially community health workers” said Viviane Sakanga, AMREF. “The CAF-Africa donated PPE has overturned this situation in that they specifically provided PPE for CHWs and worked with the Ministry of Health to ensure each CHW gets the allocated PPE. The PPE items have enabled CHWs to carry out their duties and to feel more confident that they are not putting their lives at risk.”
During the country’s response to COVID-19, PPE requirements rose four-fold to maintain essential health services. The majority of COVID-19 cases in Zambia are under community case management, so CHWs’ roles are critical in ensuring that these cases are well managed and further spread is halted. Community health workers are assisting in the country’s COVID-19 response by performing community case management, contact tracing and home visits amidst their routine community health responsibilities.
Since August 2020, CAF-Africa has committed and delivered more than 66 million pieces of medical PPE for almost 500,000 community health workers in 18 African countries. The coalition continues to mobilize resources to get PPE items to community health workers on the frontlines in additional African nations.
About the COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa
The COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa (CAF-Africa) is an award-winning collaborative of 30+ organizations dedicated to providing personal protective equipment (PPE) to Community Health Workers (CHWs) on the frontlines of Africa’s COVID-19 response, including CHWs in Angola. CAF-Africa is organized by and draws on the diverse expertise of its non-profit partners: Community Health Acceleration Partnership, Direct Relief, the Pandemic Action Network, and the Community Health Impact Coalition and its member organizations including Integrate Health, Last Mile Health, Living Goods, Lwala Community Alliance, Muso, Partners In Health, Pivot, and VillageReach. For more information, visit www.cafafrica.org.
Contact
CAF-Africa Communications manager
media@cafafrica.org