By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The charity Action Against Hunger (AAH) is currently rolling out a project aimed at supporting Public Health Units (PHU) across the Western Area as part of efforts to fight against the Coronavirus pandemic.
The project which is targeting 22 PHUs provides Infection Prevention Control materials for the clinics for the protection of health workers and their patients.
On Wednesday, the organization visited the Kroo Bay community clinic and donated IPC items like latex gloves, Clorox, hand washing soaps, waste bin and incinerator drum, among other items.
The same gesture was done in four other clinics in the city on Wednesday.
Advocacy and Communication Officer for AAH, Alfred Sinnah, told Politico that this is part of our support to help the Government of Sierra Leone fight the COVID-19.”
AAH said all 22 PHUs selected are in some of the most deprived communities in the country.
Sinnah said: “These are some of the most hard to reach areas and they have many people to attend to. So they need support. Before now, we had done a needs assessment and we knew they will need support like this.”
Kroobay is one of the most prominent slum community in the country. The community has gone through outbreaks like Cholera and Ebola.
Communities like Kroobay are susceptible to an outbreak like the COVID-19.
Packed houses and a huge population in the slum and other slum areas mean clinics are always stretched and in dire need of support. It also means social distancing, which is a major prevention method of COVID-19, is almost impossible.
David Nyuma Vanney, who is a Community Health Officer in charge of the health center at Kroobay, said AAH’s support is crucial in the fight against the coronavirus disease.
Vanney said the clinic serves up to 12,000 people.
“The immediate challenge had been IPC materials. For example, we can talk about hand washing but we didn’t have soap. Initially, we only had one bucket to wash hand but organizations are now supporting us with that,” Vanney said.
“We want to thank your NGO for helping us to prepare against the coronavirus. Some other organizations won’t even dare to walk through this mud and bring such support for us,” Vanney said during the presentation ceremony.
AAH is a humanitarian organization that focuses on ending world hunger and it works in more than 50 countries across the world.
The charity said the next phase of its COVID-19 project is to support quarantined homes.
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