Covid-19 infection among health workers in Sierra Leone have reduced by 9 percent, Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr Aplha T. Wurie, has said.
Dr Wurie told an international press briefing on Thursday that two months ago over 16% of all COVID-19 infections in the country were among health workers.
The press briefing which was held virtually via zoom, was convened by the African Press Organization (APO) and it brought together a panel of high profile speakers, including the Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Region Office for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the Minister of Health of Burkina Faso, Dr Léonie Claudine Lougue, and a Ghana-based maternal health expert, Dr Jemima A. Dennis-Antwi.
APO is a pan-African media relations consultancy and press release distribution service. The briefing hosted by South African journalist Tsepiso Makwetla, focused on the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on health workers. Journalists from across the Africa region had the opportunity to send in questions prior to the briefing.
Dr Wurie told the audience that while the pandemic is still ongoing, the rate of infection in Sierra Leone seemed to be dropping, although he noted that lack of epidemiological data for statistical analysis meant that he couldn’t tell the current state of the epidemiological curve.
As of Thursday July 23, Sierra Leone had recorded 1, 752 cumulative confirmed cases of the viral disease.
“The level of anxiety has dropped and the numbers on mandatory quarantine is getting smaller,” Wurie said, adding that even though the number of infections were still high, recoveries were also increasing.
Despite Dr Wurie’s optimism, figures from the WHO indicate that cases of COVID-19 in the region appear to be gathering pace.
The WHO Africa regional chief, Dr Moeti, warned that the pandemic posed a threat to health workers across the region.
According to the UN health agency, 10, 000 health workers in the 40 countries which have reported on such infections were infected with the virus as of Thursday July 23. Dr Moeti said that was a sign of the challenges medical staff on the frontlines of the outbreak were facing.
As of Friday July 24, there were 655, 841, cases, with 10, 960 deaths, according to WHO figures.
The UN health body also warned that some countries were approaching a critical number of infections that could place stress on health systems.
Figures by the Africa CDC as of Friday July 24 show that South Africa is the worst-hit in the region with 408, 052 cases and 6, 093 deaths, followed closely by Nigeria with 38, 948 cases and 833 deaths.
“The growth we are seeing in COVID-19 cases in Africa is placing an ever-greater strain on health services across the continent,” said Dr Moeti.
“This has very real consequences for the individuals who work in them, and there is no more sobering example of this than the rising number of health worker infections,” she added.
Globally Covid-19 cases were 15, 296, 926 as of Friday July 24, according to WHO. It said that about 10% of all these cases were among health workers, though there is a wide range between individual countries.
In Africa, information on health worker infections is still limited, but preliminary data finds that they make up more than 5% of cases in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and in four of these, health workers make up more than 10% of all infections, it said.
The experts who spoke at the briefing cited, among others, inadequate access to personal protective equipment or weak infection prevention and control measures as having raised the risk of health worker infection. Surging global demand for protective equipment as well as global restrictions on travel have also been blamed for triggering supply shortages.
There is also concern that health workers can be exposed to patients who do not show signs of the disease and are in the health facilities for a range of other services.
Risks, according to the WHO, may also arise when health personnel are repurposed for COVID-19 response without adequate briefing, or because of heavy workloads which result in fatigue, burnout and possibly not fully applying the standard operating procedures. In many African countries infection prevention and control measures aimed at preventing infections in health facilities are still not fully implemented, it added.
An assessment of clinics and hospitals across the continent by the WHO revealed that only 16% of the nearly 30, 000 facilities surveyed had assessment scores above 75% in terms of infection prevention control measures. Many of the facilities were found to lack the infrastructure necessary to implement key infection prevention measures, or to prevent overcrowding.
Only 7.8% (2213) had isolation capacities and just a third had the capacity to triage patients, the assessment further showed.
Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire were singled out as among countries which have managed to record some progress in reducing health worker infections considerably, and the WHO attributed this to concerted efforts with WHO and other partners.
Cote d’Ivoire reportedly reduced the proportion of infections among health workers from 6.1% to 1.4%.
“One infection among health workers is one too many,” said Dr Moeti, adding: “Doctors, nurses and other health professionals are our mothers, brothers and sisters. They are helping to save lives endangered by COVID-19. We must make sure that they have the equipment, skills and information they need to keep themselves, their patients and colleagues safe.”
WHO says it has been working closely with health ministries across the region with the goal of reducing health worker infections since the outbreak began. It noted that it had trained more than 50, 000 health workers in this regard in infection prevention and control, with plans to train over 200, 000 more.
WHO says it also intends to provide guidance documents and guidelines on best care practices and the most up-to-date treatment regimes.
The global health body says it is also helping to fill gaps in the supply of personal protective equipment. Currently, 41 million items of personal protective equipment are ready to ship from China to cover the needs of 47 African countries, it says. Shipments for an initial set of 23 African countries were planned to start last weekend.
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