When COVID-19 was declared in South Sudan, protecting healthcare workers became a priority of the government, the UN and other partners.

To minimize their exposure to COVID-19, when caring for patients with communicable infections, wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) is vital to interrupt the transmission in addition to hand hygiene.

PPE is the first line of protection for health care personnel.

“Our health care workers are at high risk of exposure to COVID-19 as we don’t know who has COVID-19 or not”, said Dr Christopher Sule Agapito Lado, a Senior Pharmacist at Juba Teaching Hospital.  

“PPE is a critical component in reducing the spread and safeguards our health care workers from COVID-19”, Dr Lado added. Thanks to WHO, Juba Teaching Hospital received a total 30 000 PPE from the common pool. The PPE will protect frontline healthcare workers infection and transmission of COVID-19.

To ensure far reaching access to PPE across South Sudan, over 14 million PPE were procured. The well synchronized coordination and collaboration among key partners in the sector of supply chain management provided room for resources optimization and better performance. It also proved to be an important driver for promoting streamlined allocation, prioritization and distribution of PPE.

“We continuously monitor supply chain for gaps”, said Dr Olushayo Olu, WHO Representative for South Sudan. “As gaps are identified, we put in place measures to ensure availability of adequate PPE supplies where it is needed”, said Dr Olu.

Ensuring the availability of personal protective equipment

During the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak, many healthcare workers became infected due to lack of appropriate infection prevention and control protocols and implementation procedures.

Ensuring adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) at all times is vital to prevent health care workers infection from a large influx of COVID-19 patients.

To reduce excess illness and death from epidemic-prone diseases such as COVID-19, in priority areas, WHO with funding from the South Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SSHF) procured PPE worth of $5 million through the COVID-19 UN Supply Portal.

The PPE distributed to 121 partners operating in 375 locations across the county to ensure health workers and other cadres performing critical public health functions in prioritized locations in South Sudan have access to the much-needed PPE.

“The health and safety of healthcare workers is extremely important”, said Dr Olu. “Thanks to the generous donors to OCHA South Sudan for enabling a lifesaving health response to protect health care workers and individuals seeking medical care from infection”. “Controlling the number of new health-care worker infections is essential, not only for health-care workers but for the sustainability of the health-care system, and to reduce the overall number of cases”, Dr Olu added.

The number of health-care workers infected with COVID-19 in South Sudan has reached 143. This means that health-care worker infections make up around 4.1% of all confirmed cases.

Despite a fear of becoming infected and infecting others, healthcare workers go to health facilities showing remarkable resilience and professional dedication.  

Improvement in health care personnel and patient safety in health facilities contribute to WHO’s strategic goal of ‘One billion more people better protected from health emergencies’.

The PPE also distributed to support the oral cholera vaccination, yellow fever vaccination and polio vaccination campaigns conducted in 2020 as well as the communities in the protection of civilian sites, internally displaced sites, nutrition centers, schools, churches, markets and border points.

Technical contact:

Mr Paul Ekeya,  OSL, Email: ekeyap [at] who.int