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Coordination and Management of COVID-19 in Africa through Health Operations and Technical Expertise Pillar: A Case Study from WHO AFRO One Year into Response
Background: following the importation of the first Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case into Africa on 14 February 2020 in Egypt, the World Health Organisation (WHO) regional office for Africa (AFRO) activated a three-level incident management support team (IMST), with technical pillars, to coor...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9415043/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36006275 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7080183 |
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author | Ngoy, Nsenga Conteh, Ishata Nannie Oyugi, Boniface Abok, Patrick Kobie, Aminata Phori, Peter Hamba, Cephas Ejiofor, Nonso Ephraim Fitzwanga, Kaizer Appiah, John Edwin, Ama Fawole, Temidayo Kamara, Rashidatu Cihambanya, Landry Kabego Mzozo, Tasiana Ryan, Caroline Braka, Fiona Yoti, Zabulon Kasolo, Francis Okeibunor, Joseph C. Gueye, Abdou Salam |
author_facet | Ngoy, Nsenga Conteh, Ishata Nannie Oyugi, Boniface Abok, Patrick Kobie, Aminata Phori, Peter Hamba, Cephas Ejiofor, Nonso Ephraim Fitzwanga, Kaizer Appiah, John Edwin, Ama Fawole, Temidayo Kamara, Rashidatu Cihambanya, Landry Kabego Mzozo, Tasiana Ryan, Caroline Braka, Fiona Yoti, Zabulon Kasolo, Francis Okeibunor, Joseph C. Gueye, Abdou Salam |
author_sort | Ngoy, Nsenga |
collection | PubMed |
description | Background: following the importation of the first Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case into Africa on 14 February 2020 in Egypt, the World Health Organisation (WHO) regional office for Africa (AFRO) activated a three-level incident management support team (IMST), with technical pillars, to coordinate planning, implementing, supervision, and monitoring of the situation and progress of implementation as well as response to the pandemic in the region. At WHO AFRO, one of the pillars was the health operations and technical expertise (HOTE) pillar with five sub-pillars: case management, infection prevention and control, risk communication and community engagement, laboratory, and emergency medical team (EMT). This paper documents the learnings (both positive and negative for consideration of change) from the activities of the HOTE pillar and recommends future actions for improving its coordination for future emergencies, especially for multi-country outbreaks or pandemic emergency responses. Method: we conducted a document review of the HOTE pillar coordination meetings’ minutes, reports, policy and strategy documents of the activities, and outcomes and feedback on updates on the HOTE pillar given at regular intervals to the Regional IMST. In addition, key informant interviews were conducted with 14 members of the HOTE sub pillar. Key Learnings: the pandemic response revealed that shared decision making, collaborative coordination, and planning have been significant in the COVID-19 response in Africa. The HOTE pillar’s response structure contributed to attaining the IMST objectives in the African region and translated to timely support for the WHO AFRO and the member states. However, while the coordination mechanism appeared robust, some challenges included duplication of coordination efforts, communication, documentation, and information management. Recommendations: we recommend streamlining the flow of information to better understand the challenges that countries face. There is a need to define the role and responsibilities of sub-pillar team members and provide new team members with information briefs to guide them on where and how to access internal information and work under the pillar. A unified documentation system is important and could help to strengthen intra-pillar collaboration and communication. Various indicators should be developed to constantly monitor the HOTE team’s deliverables, performance and its members. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9415043 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94150432022-08-27 Coordination and Management of COVID-19 in Africa through Health Operations and Technical Expertise Pillar: A Case Study from WHO AFRO One Year into Response Ngoy, Nsenga Conteh, Ishata Nannie Oyugi, Boniface Abok, Patrick Kobie, Aminata Phori, Peter Hamba, Cephas Ejiofor, Nonso Ephraim Fitzwanga, Kaizer Appiah, John Edwin, Ama Fawole, Temidayo Kamara, Rashidatu Cihambanya, Landry Kabego Mzozo, Tasiana Ryan, Caroline Braka, Fiona Yoti, Zabulon Kasolo, Francis Okeibunor, Joseph C. Gueye, Abdou Salam Trop Med Infect Dis Article Background: following the importation of the first Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case into Africa on 14 February 2020 in Egypt, the World Health Organisation (WHO) regional office for Africa (AFRO) activated a three-level incident management support team (IMST), with technical pillars, to coordinate planning, implementing, supervision, and monitoring of the situation and progress of implementation as well as response to the pandemic in the region. At WHO AFRO, one of the pillars was the health operations and technical expertise (HOTE) pillar with five sub-pillars: case management, infection prevention and control, risk communication and community engagement, laboratory, and emergency medical team (EMT). This paper documents the learnings (both positive and negative for consideration of change) from the activities of the HOTE pillar and recommends future actions for improving its coordination for future emergencies, especially for multi-country outbreaks or pandemic emergency responses. Method: we conducted a document review of the HOTE pillar coordination meetings’ minutes, reports, policy and strategy documents of the activities, and outcomes and feedback on updates on the HOTE pillar given at regular intervals to the Regional IMST. In addition, key informant interviews were conducted with 14 members of the HOTE sub pillar. Key Learnings: the pandemic response revealed that shared decision making, collaborative coordination, and planning have been significant in the COVID-19 response in Africa. The HOTE pillar’s response structure contributed to attaining the IMST objectives in the African region and translated to timely support for the WHO AFRO and the member states. However, while the coordination mechanism appeared robust, some challenges included duplication of coordination efforts, communication, documentation, and information management. Recommendations: we recommend streamlining the flow of information to better understand the challenges that countries face. There is a need to define the role and responsibilities of sub-pillar team members and provide new team members with information briefs to guide them on where and how to access internal information and work under the pillar. A unified documentation system is important and could help to strengthen intra-pillar collaboration and communication. Various indicators should be developed to constantly monitor the HOTE team’s deliverables, performance and its members. MDPI 2022-08-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9415043/ /pubmed/36006275 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7080183 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Ngoy, Nsenga Conteh, Ishata Nannie Oyugi, Boniface Abok, Patrick Kobie, Aminata Phori, Peter Hamba, Cephas Ejiofor, Nonso Ephraim Fitzwanga, Kaizer Appiah, John Edwin, Ama Fawole, Temidayo Kamara, Rashidatu Cihambanya, Landry Kabego Mzozo, Tasiana Ryan, Caroline Braka, Fiona Yoti, Zabulon Kasolo, Francis Okeibunor, Joseph C. Gueye, Abdou Salam Coordination and Management of COVID-19 in Africa through Health Operations and Technical Expertise Pillar: A Case Study from WHO AFRO One Year into Response |
title | Coordination and Management of COVID-19 in Africa through Health Operations and Technical Expertise Pillar: A Case Study from WHO AFRO One Year into Response |
title_full | Coordination and Management of COVID-19 in Africa through Health Operations and Technical Expertise Pillar: A Case Study from WHO AFRO One Year into Response |
title_fullStr | Coordination and Management of COVID-19 in Africa through Health Operations and Technical Expertise Pillar: A Case Study from WHO AFRO One Year into Response |
title_full_unstemmed | Coordination and Management of COVID-19 in Africa through Health Operations and Technical Expertise Pillar: A Case Study from WHO AFRO One Year into Response |
title_short | Coordination and Management of COVID-19 in Africa through Health Operations and Technical Expertise Pillar: A Case Study from WHO AFRO One Year into Response |
title_sort | coordination and management of covid-19 in africa through health operations and technical expertise pillar: a case study from who afro one year into response |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9415043/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36006275 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7080183 |
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