WHO, FG trains 350 health emergency responders

The World Health Organization(WHO) in partnership support with the Federal Government has trained no fewer than 350 healthcare personnel on rapid response to tackle health emergencies.

The Country Representative of WHO, Dr Walter Molumbo said the plan was to provide national and subnational Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) with the key knowledge and tools needed to detect and effectively respond to public health emergencies as they occur.

“WHO is expected that at least 350 Nigerian core responders are trained and ready to deploy within the first 24 hours of an emergency,”

Molumbo said the initiative with the theme: “Capacity Building, Learning and Training to On-Board the AVoHC SURGE Team, the WHO representative said preparation and early rapid execution of outbreak response strategies are critical in detecting, containing, and mitigating the spread of potentially dangerous infectious diseases.

He said enhancing global health security (GHS) required holistic and coordinated sustained national and sub-national actions to ensure a faster and more equitable response.

According to Molumbo, emergencies, disasters, and other crises were increasing in number and magnitude daily in Nigeria, affecting thousands of vulnerable and unprotected people.

“The situation is not promising to improve soon. As of 2nd November 2022, 18,093 suspected cholera cases have been reported in 256 Local Government Areas of 31 states (CFR 2.6 per cent).

“About a 41 per cent decrease in the number of new suspected Cholera cases observed compared to the previous two weeks, where 3,990 suspected cases were recorded.

“Currently, the flooding situation has become overwhelming with 3,219,780 affected persons, 1,427,370 displaced persons, 2,776 injured, 612 deaths, 305,407 houses damaged, 176,852 hectares of partially damaged farmlands and 392,399 completely flooded damaged farmlands in 35 States as of 24th October 2022,” he said.

Molumbo said the ability to deliver an early and effective response required government and institutions to be prepared collaboratively for new outbreaks, adding they must be ready to respond, “nationally, sub-nationally and locally before an attack becomes an epidemic or pandemic.”

He stated that the main objectives of the SURGE training was to train and prepare a workforce that could be called upon when needed, drawn not only from the WHO but mainly from the States, civil society, and volunteers.

In addition, he said the purpose of the SURGE was to provide surge support to countries that must rapidly mitigate crises.

Speaking further on the need for such an intervention, Molumbo said the Nigeria health emergency context was now more challenging, rapidly changing, and chaotic, and that most times, response operations were in insecure environments.

He also said inadequacies in emergency preparedness lead to slow and poor response in decision-making.

“SURGE training will complement better structures to enable national authorities to mobilise human resources and supplies once emergencies are declared quickly.

“There is a need for better structures to quickly mobilise human resources and supplies at all all levels once emergencies are declared, which COVID-19 has exposed and intensified,” he said.

Relevant ministries were selected to train seventy-five (75) volunteers and government employees to serve as SURGE members and perform the functions laid out in the Incident Management System (IMS) for four weeks on five modules.

Minister of State for Health, Ekumankama Nkama who noted that Nigeria was working with WHO towards ensuring another pandemic does not take the country by surprise, said “nobody knows what will happen if there’s a pandemic that will be worse than the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We need to be prepared, be ready to respond effectively when we have such crisis or emergencies and so we’re working with the WHO to make sure that we train the trainers ready to deploy in case of such situations.”

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