Accra – The Covid-19 Action Fund for Africa (CAF-Africa) has donated personal protective equipment (PPE) to health ministries in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Mali for each country’s social health workers (CHWs). . CAF-Africa is an action-oriented collaboration of more than 30 organizations that focus on protecting community and frontline health workers in the COVID-19 response in Africa.
CAF-Africa has donated more than 5 million PBT to Mali. The shipment contains 5,472,000 masks and 22,529 face shields PBT needed to protect health workers who are on the last mile of service.
Sierra Leone received 2 million PBT. The consignment contains 2.3 million masks and 41,300 face screens.
Côte D’Ivoire received 1 million PBT. The consignment contained 1120,000 masks and 22,306 face shields.
Liberia received 3,100 face shields.
According to the World Health Organization, there was a 203 percent increase in Covid-19 infections among health workers in Africa due to a lack of EAT. Community Health Workers (CHWs) provide essential health services such as integrated community case management as well as COVID-19 specific activities. Without adequate EAT, they can not fight COVID nor ensure that communities have access to routine health services.
Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, global demand for PBT has grown by a factor of 100 and prices are up to 20 times higher. Although a global shortage of PBT affects all health workers, the heaviest countries have fallen with especially low- and middle-income countries.
The PPE donations already made by CAF-Africa will protect 200,000 CHWs who protect healthcare services during the pandemic.
Including West Africa, CAF-Africa has donated PPE to various countries in East, Central and South Africa. The goal of the COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa is to raise $ 100 million to supply PPW to more than 20 African countries for approximately one year.
About the COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa (CAF-AFRICA): The COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa is a continental whole collaborative effort to collect and meet the unmet need for COVID-19 related supplies for community health workers speak. than 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. CAF-Africa gathers resources to ensure competitive pricing for quality assured essential supplies and works with local partners and governments to deploy products to the last mile.
Integrated with national responses, it is the only effort known for resources for PBT items, specifically for community health workers in Africa. More than 30 local and global partners are involved in the effort. CAF-AFRICA is jointly organized by Community Health Acceleration Partnership, the organizations of the Community Health Impact Coalition (including Integrate Health, Last Mile Health, Living Goods, Lwala Community Alliance, Muso, Partners in Health, Pivot and VillageReach), Direct Relief, Pandemic Action Network and Ministries of Health in more than 20 countries.
The countries include: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Nigeria, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia, Zimbabwe.