In August 2020, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing (PACT) initiative to maximize use of resources for testing, tracing, and treating COVID-19. GHD|EMPHNET supported this initiative in community contract tracing by training and deploying community health workers (CHWs) in northern Africa: Egypt, Morocco, Somalia, and Sudan. GHD|EMPHNET collaborated with the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET) in the identification, orientation, and deployment of CHWs who assisted in contact tracing as well as raising community awareness.
In these countries, 200 CHWs were trained over the past eight months and upon deployment were able to reach a considerable number of households: 20,432 in Somalia, 68,281 in Egypt, 83,037 in Sudan, and 935 in Morocco. For these, they identified suspected cases and made the needed referrals for PCR testing. In different communal settings from schools to health facilities, cafes, and restaurants, CHWs also conducted awareness-raising campaigns to share information on COVID 19, its symptoms, its mode of transmission, prevention methods, and the importance of the vaccines.
Based on the observed success of these CHW deployments, the PACT initiative will be extended for an additional three months in support of contact tracing and behavioral change in new areas in each of the afore-mentioned countries.