Awka, 22 September 2018 - In a bid to scale up Integrated Diseases Surveillance and Response (IDSR) capacities, World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the European Union trains 862 health workers in Anambra State. 

The training which held on 03 -15 September 2018 is part of larger efforts by WHO and partners to empower local, state and national authorities to better protect Nigerians against disease outbreaks through prompt and effective detection, assessment and response to health emergencies.

“Detection and response capacities are critical to quickly contain and reduce the impact of outbreaks and other emergencies in Nigeria. Effectively implementing IDSR in the country can play an essential role in better protecting Nigerians against such threats,” says Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu, the WHO Country Representative (WR).

Nigeria is frequently affected by disease outbreaks and other natural and manmade disasters, which lead to intense suffering for infected people and financial and social burdens for affected communities. In 2018 alone, the country notably faced outbreaks of cholera, Yellow fever, Lassa fever and Monkeypox. 

According to WR, “empowering health care workers in disease surveillance and response is essential. They are at the frontline of a country’s efforts to contain outbreaks and other events before they affect the population.” 

These outbreaks and their related impact on Nigerians highlight the limitation of the country’s capacity to timely detect, assess and respond to such events. Effective detection and response capacity are thus critical to quickly contain such threats and reduce their impact on the population.

Recognizing the need to increase Nigeria’s capacity in this critical sector, WHO is supporting the country to scale up the development and implementation at national, state and local levels of the IDSR strategy which will \strengthen ward level surveillance and response for priority diseases. The strategy will also translate surveillance and laboratory data into specific and timely public health actions. 

The training of 862 surveillance focal persons from public primary health care settings (578 trained), private (261 trained), secondary (21) and tertiary (2) facilities in Anambra marks a new step towards this objective. With the support of the European Union, the health facility level training was conducted through presentations, group work, plenary discussions and practical demonstration.  The training sessions covered six modules namely:  identification of priority diseases, reporting of the priority diseases using the standard case definition, review of the health facility registers, extraction of the IDSR data from the health facility registers, completing the IDSR reporting tools and basic analysis and interpretation IDSR data generated at the health facility levels. 

In appreciation, Mrs Obiagwu Oyibo the Head of Health Department, Dunukofia local government area of Anambra said, “We are grateful to WHO and its partners for the training which is first of its kind in our practice. We wish to assure that Anambra state will witness great improvement in the quantity and quality of IDSR data from our health facilities.” 

The capacity building in is part of a project funded by the European Union on strengthening health systems towards achieving Universal Health Coverage and is to be expanded in eight additional states before the end of 2018. The ultimate goal is  to train at least 80% of health care workers in the country on IDSR by end of 2019. Systematic follow up visits at sites and regular monitoring and supportive supervision will be conducted to assist with the implementation of the training received.

The objectives of the project are to improve the availability and quality of health information for decision-making as well as strengthen the health financing system at both Federal and state levels.

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