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Humanitarian sector (international non-governmental organisations) support to the community in Goma city/DRC during the COVID-19 pandemic period: Expectations and reality

COVID-19 was the largest public health emergency to disrupt social life and health systems worldwide. The pandemic affected all world continents creating fear and stress in many aspects of social life. The pandemic spread from China to Europe, then to Africa carrying with it all the negative impacts...

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Autores principales: Hamuli, Roger Paluku, Mayhew, Susannah H., Sahani, Mateus Kambale
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10588899/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37862286
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0002086
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author Hamuli, Roger Paluku
Mayhew, Susannah H.
Sahani, Mateus Kambale
author_facet Hamuli, Roger Paluku
Mayhew, Susannah H.
Sahani, Mateus Kambale
author_sort Hamuli, Roger Paluku
collection PubMed
description COVID-19 was the largest public health emergency to disrupt social life and health systems worldwide. The pandemic affected all world continents creating fear and stress in many aspects of social life. The pandemic spread from China to Europe, then to Africa carrying with it all the negative impacts affecting population wellbeing. The COVID-19 pandemic was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in March 2020 and created huge shock and stress countrywide. Goma city accommodates more than 30 international non-governmental humanitarian organisations (HO) who have sought to support local communities to help them overcome COVID-19 stress. Few studies to date have considered the role of these HO from the perspective of the beneficiary populations. This is a descriptive, analytical study, reporting data collected from a survey questionnaire to 100 community members (including 21 healthcare professionals) in Karisimbi health zone in Goma city in DRC. The study’s main aim was to explore how community members viewed the contribution and impact of HO actions during COVID-19 in Goma city. We identified some important mis-matches between community expectations and HO actions which must be addressed in future outbreaks. First, community members had big expectations of HO in terms of practice support to tackle the pandemic (including providing handwashing devices and mobile support teams), yet the vast majority of respondents reported seeing little or no such actions. This can create resentment against HO and it is critically important that they rapidly engage with communities at the start of any outbreak to understand their needs and concerns and develop strategies to directly respond to these. Second, HO played a very limited role in dissemination of information about COVID-19 and were not trusted messengers. Our findings showed that most people’s preferred source of information about COVID-19, specifically vaccines, was local healthcare workers–particularly those who were known well and therefore trusted. HO (and national responders) should therefore map trusted spokespersons (including healthcare professionals) in the targeted communities and involve them in the planning and implementation of interventions as essential steps in the response. Among our respondents, social media played a large role in information sharing. Further research is needed to understand the role that social media (particularly Facebook and WhatsApp which were most frequently used) could play in sharing messages from trusted sources, including official government communications. Collectively, these actions could help create a positive attitude towards COVID-19 vaccine and similar interventions in future outbreaks.
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spelling pubmed-105888992023-10-21 Humanitarian sector (international non-governmental organisations) support to the community in Goma city/DRC during the COVID-19 pandemic period: Expectations and reality Hamuli, Roger Paluku Mayhew, Susannah H. Sahani, Mateus Kambale PLOS Glob Public Health Research Article COVID-19 was the largest public health emergency to disrupt social life and health systems worldwide. The pandemic affected all world continents creating fear and stress in many aspects of social life. The pandemic spread from China to Europe, then to Africa carrying with it all the negative impacts affecting population wellbeing. The COVID-19 pandemic was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in March 2020 and created huge shock and stress countrywide. Goma city accommodates more than 30 international non-governmental humanitarian organisations (HO) who have sought to support local communities to help them overcome COVID-19 stress. Few studies to date have considered the role of these HO from the perspective of the beneficiary populations. This is a descriptive, analytical study, reporting data collected from a survey questionnaire to 100 community members (including 21 healthcare professionals) in Karisimbi health zone in Goma city in DRC. The study’s main aim was to explore how community members viewed the contribution and impact of HO actions during COVID-19 in Goma city. We identified some important mis-matches between community expectations and HO actions which must be addressed in future outbreaks. First, community members had big expectations of HO in terms of practice support to tackle the pandemic (including providing handwashing devices and mobile support teams), yet the vast majority of respondents reported seeing little or no such actions. This can create resentment against HO and it is critically important that they rapidly engage with communities at the start of any outbreak to understand their needs and concerns and develop strategies to directly respond to these. Second, HO played a very limited role in dissemination of information about COVID-19 and were not trusted messengers. Our findings showed that most people’s preferred source of information about COVID-19, specifically vaccines, was local healthcare workers–particularly those who were known well and therefore trusted. HO (and national responders) should therefore map trusted spokespersons (including healthcare professionals) in the targeted communities and involve them in the planning and implementation of interventions as essential steps in the response. Among our respondents, social media played a large role in information sharing. Further research is needed to understand the role that social media (particularly Facebook and WhatsApp which were most frequently used) could play in sharing messages from trusted sources, including official government communications. Collectively, these actions could help create a positive attitude towards COVID-19 vaccine and similar interventions in future outbreaks. Public Library of Science 2023-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10588899/ /pubmed/37862286 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0002086 Text en © 2023 Hamuli et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hamuli, Roger Paluku
Mayhew, Susannah H.
Sahani, Mateus Kambale
Humanitarian sector (international non-governmental organisations) support to the community in Goma city/DRC during the COVID-19 pandemic period: Expectations and reality
title Humanitarian sector (international non-governmental organisations) support to the community in Goma city/DRC during the COVID-19 pandemic period: Expectations and reality
title_full Humanitarian sector (international non-governmental organisations) support to the community in Goma city/DRC during the COVID-19 pandemic period: Expectations and reality
title_fullStr Humanitarian sector (international non-governmental organisations) support to the community in Goma city/DRC during the COVID-19 pandemic period: Expectations and reality
title_full_unstemmed Humanitarian sector (international non-governmental organisations) support to the community in Goma city/DRC during the COVID-19 pandemic period: Expectations and reality
title_short Humanitarian sector (international non-governmental organisations) support to the community in Goma city/DRC during the COVID-19 pandemic period: Expectations and reality
title_sort humanitarian sector (international non-governmental organisations) support to the community in goma city/drc during the covid-19 pandemic period: expectations and reality
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10588899/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37862286
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0002086
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