HopeCore's Measures to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19
With the confirmation of COVID-19 in Kenya, the Government put in place several measures to prevent the spread of the virus in the country. These measures included suspending learning in all educational institutions, allowing employees to work from home, and reducing social gatherings.
Village HopeCore scaled down most of its outreach activities to comply with these directives and ensure the safety of our staff beneficiaries. They took the following measures: suspended mobile clinics due to the closure of the schools, Barry Wood Youth Resource Center closed to avoid gathering at the Center, clinical office and laboratory closed due to a small-client-waiting-space and lack of personal protective equipment for the staff, mobile Maternal Child Health Clinics suspended to avoid gatherings, long-lasting treated mosquito nets (LLTNs) distribution halted until learning in schools resumes, micro-enterprise program activities continue but with strict adherence to set standard operating procedures (SOPs) developed by Village HopeCore task force.
HopeCore has provided handwashing stations and soap throughout the county at local health facilities and high-traffic areas such as shopping areas and bus stations.
As primary health providers, HopeCore is now focusing on educating and sensitizing the community on COVID-19 to combat the spread of the virus and break the chain of transmission in Thraka Nithi County. We have developed a COVID-19 education toolkit that has general information on COVID-19 from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Kenya Ministry of Health (MOH) that includes information for clinicians and hospitals, an education module on COVID-19 for Comunity Health Workers/Volunteers, and research journals/articles on COVID-19.
HopeCore is posting flyers throughout the community to help educate villagers on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
In the past two weeks, we have trained 280 CHVs within Mwimbi and Muthambi sub-counties who have in turn become COVID-19 community educators. We have also distributed handwashing tanks and soap to high-traffic places such as markets, bus stations, police stations, and to all the 28 public health facilities in Mwimbi and Muthambi sub-counties. We have also trained 33 town council employees who are now in charge of the handwashing stations installed in public areas.
We are glad to report that the County Government of Tharaka Nithi has adopted HopeCore's training module on COVID-19 and they asked all health partners to use our PowerPoint presentations and other educational material that we have developed in their training. HopeCore has also been requested to extend its training to other counties as well where an additional 290 CHVs will be trained on COVID-19 starting this week. The CHVs will serve as COVID-19 educators in their villages.
Our staff continuing to educate on social distancing behaviors and promoting new forms of greeting for Kenyan culture!
We plan to resume our normal services immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic comes to an end in Kenya.
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