The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak continues to ravage communities in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. The World Bank in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and other technical partners provided funding to implement a training program known as surveillance training to enhance Ebola response and readiness (STEER).
... See More + This STEER training aimed at strengthening prevention and control of the spread of the ongoing Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak by creating a large workforce of frontline health workers and community health workers known as relais communautaires (RECOs). The training strategy adopted involved conducting four STEER trainings targeting participants from provinces, health zones, health areas, and communities in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. This report summarizes the four levels of the STEER trainings conducted between third and fifteenth August 2019. The training focused on detection of EVD, contact tracing, infection prevention and control (IPC), and WASH, risk communication and psycho-social aspects of Ebola. Recommendations included: (1) training of health workers in EVD affected health zones that were left out in North Kivu, (2) conducting the STEER training in Ituri province, and (3) close supportive supervision and mentorship of the RECOs.
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Despite global efforts to address malnutrition, the numbers of children under five who are not growing properly are alarming: 150.8 million (22.2 percent) are stunted (too short for their age), 50.5 million (7.5 percent) are wasted (too thin for their height), and 38.3 million (5.6 percent) are overweight (too heavy for their height).
... See More + Children living in lower-middle income countries (LMIC) are particularly affected. At these rates, the world is off course to reach the World Health Assembly targets for 2025 and the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
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Guinea-Bissau meets many, if not all, criteria that characterize health systems in fragile states. The country’s health system faces persistent challenges related to low public spending, poor infrastructure, inadequate supply of health workers, inadequate clinical and managerial training systems, malfunctioning referral system, non-operational health-information systems, weak governance and inadequate management capacity and systems (such as budgeting, public financial management and human resources management).
... See More + Public spending accounts for about 20 percent of total health spending and is mostly used to pay staff salaries, while donors finance nearly 90 percent of the recurrent costs of the sector, including medicines and other critical health inputs. This report provides a comprehensive diagnostic of the health service delivery system in Guinea-Bissau. It explores quality of care, workload/productivity and absenteeism. A service delivery indicators (SDI) survey was implemented to cover these and other key aspects of the health system for which no data were available in Guinea-Bissau (such as public expenditure tracking survey). The report provides an extensive analysis of the data and links it to other analytical and operational work under implementation in the country.
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This report summarizes key findings from the endline assessment of the pilot project, Improving Birth Registration Using Existing Community Structures and Immunization Processes.
... See More + The project was undertaken in Yilmana Densa and Goji Qolela woredas (districts); Hintalo Wajirat and Enderta woredas; and Amibara and Awash Fentale woredas, which are the intervention and control woredas in Amhara, Tigray, and Afar regions, respectively. The overall objective was to enhance a well-functioning civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system by integrating community health structures with civil status offices. This assessment was quasi-experimental by design and used longitudinal data, supplemented by a methodology like the one used in the baseline survey to compare improvements in key variables. The assessment compared intervention and control groups, with measuring use of civil registration services, and compared the outcome of the CRVS service provision in terms of improvement. The assessment used qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. Some of the key findings of the assessment include: After introduction of the project, the rate of births registered within 90 days increased from the previous year and was greater than in the control woredas; CSOs in the intervention areas regularly visited communities for awareness creation and motivation and for registration when the WDA invited them; qualitative data from KIIs and FGDs generally indicate that the large increase in birth registration in Afar was the result of the presence of CSOs at the kebele level, community mobilization, and no civil status office staff turnover during the project; the community consistently reviewed the registration progress monthly, identifying challenges faced and ways forward at the kebele level, and noted this in the minutes.
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