Help protect 1000 health workers in Western Kenya

GLOBAL GIVING REPORT

JANUARY 2022

Help protect 1,000 health workers in Western Kenya

Introduction

Safe Water and AIDS Project (SWAP) has been operating in Western Kenya since 2005 with public health programs, research and emergency response. SWAP's mission is to provide innovative solutions for improved health and economic status of communities.

SWAP has a wealth of experience in public health interventions and has worked in collaboration with County Health Management Teams to respond to COVID-19 especially with focus on health care facilities supporting and protecting the frontline work force and the community at large from COVID-19 spread.

For that reason, the GlobalGiving platform was used to source for crowd funding from donors and well-wishers in our effort to protect health workers, reduce the COVID-19 spread and mitigate the impact.

COVID-19 Current Status in Kisumu

In this region we experienced a fifth wave now mostly with the new variant Omicron. The people who get very sick and need hospitalized are mostly those unvaccinated. The new variant is also spreading very fast. This triggered the need to accelerate vaccination. The County Department of Health reached out to partners to support COVID-19 vaccination outreaches. There has been increased supply of donations of vaccines in the country and this has now also allowed people to get vaccinated including getting boosters. However, there is still a problem with many being hesitant to visit the assigned health facilities were vaccination is done. For others they lack transport or are too vulnerable to visit those sites. At the same time the most vulnerable are at higher risk and need to be protected.

Strategy to accelerate vaccination

In collaboration with partner organizations and the County Department of Health SWAP came up with targeting the most vulnerable and hard to reach communities to ensure they get vaccinated. These are the physical disabled, street families, people from informal settlements, families affected by flood, elder community members and others from low income or remote areas.

Vaccination drive in Ombaka, Nyando Sub County

Ombaka is an area which is prone to flooding which has displaced several families. Most have lost their crops and livelihood and others had their homes destroyed and are living in tents. SWAP has been intervening preventing disease outbreaks by providing food and non-food items. The local chief reached out to SWAP requesting for a COVID-19 vaccination outreach to protect his community members.

SWAP organized two COVID 19 vaccination outreaches on the 3^rd of December 2021 and 12^th of January 2022 to ensure that the community members could get first dose and second dose. There was very good mobilization done and good attendance. Nyando Sub County Department of Health sent two vaccination teams consisting of vaccinators and data clerks who did real time entry in the MOH portal for vaccinations. Vaccination was done under the trees. During the first outreach 470 people were reached and during the second 312 got vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccination for physical handicapped and street families

On the 15^th of December 2021 SWAP joined hands with other stakeholders during a COVID-19 vaccination outreach for physical handicapped and street families at CITAM Church in Kisumu County. Transport was arranged for the physical handicapped to be ferried to and from the vaccination site. Other partners donated milk, biscuits, sanitary pads and reusable face masks. In total 132 people living with disability and 189 street family members above 18 years were vaccinated. A total of 321. A follow up of the same will be done on the 2^nd of March 2022. The exercise was really appreciated because most of these families are left out when it comes to such health campaigns.

A similar exercise was repeated now in Nyando Sub County and spread out over 3 days to get enough coverage. The exercise was done on the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th of January 2022 and also opened up for the general public. Every day two vaccination teams gathered at designated places easy accessible by the public. Prior mobilization was done by community health volunteers informing the public about the vaccination days and venue. During the 3 days we managed to get 909 people vaccinated.

Moving forward SWAP has committed to do one COVID-19 vaccination outreach per week for all the 7 Sub Counties in Kisumu mostly targeting vulnerable low income community members. We aim to reach people where they are for example pitching tent at market places to get crowds. This has been a very successful approach and much appreciated by the County Department of Health and the communities. After getting more people vaccinated there will be less strain on the health sector.

Distribution of Hand Washing Stations and soap to Health Care Facilities

SWAP continued reaching out to 47 public health care facilities in Nyando and Nyakach sub counties on monthly basis to ensure they can practice proper hand hygiene to protect the health workers and patients. Hand washing stations were installed and soaps provided. Monitoring of proper use continued by health care workers and patients visiting the facility. The hand washing stations are placed in most of the patient care areas as well as at the entrance and close to the toilets.

Alcohol Based Hand Rub (ABHR) production and distribution

The objective was to improve hand hygiene and to produce, distribute and monitor consumption of Alcohol Based Hand Rub at public health care facilities. Technical support was provided for the production which was done at the Water Lab with appropriate safety measures, capacity building and quality control measures. SWAP received approval from the Kenya Bureau of Standards in November 2020 and started monthly distribution in January 2021 to 47 health care facilities and later 34 hot spot areas in Nyando and Nyakach Sub Counties. The 47 health facilities are in rural Kenya and often lack sufficient water. Some are only relying on rain water, but during the dry season do not have any reliable source. So Alcohol Based Hand Rub is ideal for the health workers to protect themselves when handling patients.

We evaluated ABHR usage and developed a monitoring system and electronic database for ABHR consumption/use by service point with built-in feedback to production unit to produce and redistribute ABHR when stocks are low, development of localized estimates for monthly/yearly stocks needed by size of facility to aid future projections for consumption. The distribution was free but for sustainability SWAP included ABHR in the basket of products and sold to partner organizations and individuals. In 2021 3845 liters of Alcohol Based Hand Rub was produced in the lab.

WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR ONGOING SUPPORT AND DONATIONS

.

• Global Giving Report January 2022 with images (DOCX)

GLOBAL GIVING REPORT

OCTOBER 2021

Help protect 1,000 health workers in Western Kenya

Introduction

Safe Water and AIDS Project (SWAP) has been operating in Western Kenya since 2005 with public health programs, research and emergency response. SWAP's mission is to provide innovative solutions for improved health and economic status of communities. SWAP joined the Ministry of Health COVID -19 rapid response teams to help prevent the spread and mitigate the impact. The Founder and Technical Advisor of SWAP was appointed as member of the COVID-19 Advisory Committee of Lake Region Economic Bloc, providing advisory services to the Governors of 14 Counties in the region.

The scope of the problem

Healthcare facilities in resource-limited settings lack essential WASH and health care waste services.

• 50% Lack access to piped water
• 33% Lack improved Sanitation
• 39% Lack soap for hand washing or alcohol based hand rub
• 39% Lack adequate infectious waste disposal      

COVID-19 Current Status in Kisumu and the Lake Region Economic Bloc (LREB)

Limited testing, slow vaccine rollout under COVAX, poor logistics, limited health system implementation capacity, and serious vaccine hesitancy are amongst the constraining issues to controlling COVID-19 in this region. While Europe and the USA are potentially moving towards ‘herd immunity’ through vaccination program, Africa is tremendously lagging (less than 3% of the population is vaccinated today). COVAX is seriously behind. Recent research prove that COVID-19 is in fact very much present, though more hidden, due to underreporting and less symptoms. This situation, with high COVID-19 presence at the population level, seriously risks the development of different COVID-19 mutants in the future that could (partly) escape from existing COVID-19 vaccines, creating potential health risks to Kenya. In Kenya’s Lake Region residents’ livelihoods have been significantly disrupted by COVID-19. A raft of measures including dusk to dawn curfew, cessation of movement, social distancing, among others have made subsistence trade difficult, causing widespread food insecurity.

The LREB region with 14 million inhabitants has 2,363 health facilities, 2,870 isolation beds, 137 ICU beds, 1,216 doctors, 8,866 nurses, 30,213 community health workers, 36,213 cases, 117 ambulances, and less than 300,000 and 50,000 have received the first and second doses of vaccine respectively. 

From May 9 2021 onwards, starting in Kisumu, LREB region is experienced a sudden Delta Variant surge, which followed preceding Alpha and Beta surges. This further exacerbated the deteriorating socio-economic situation.

The unstable COVID-19 situation in LREB identified gaps in disease management, response, surveillance, and recovery. These gaps include, but are not limited to insufficient medical oxygen, inadequate testing capacity, need to accelerate COVID-19 testing, understaffed health facilities, little vaccination, waning cross-border disease surveillance, few multidisciplinary clinics to attend to long COVID-19 patients, and lack of social safety nets like health insurance schemes to cushion residents against ravages of the pandemic.

SWAP has a wealth of experience in public health interventions and has worked in collaboration with County Health Management Teams to respond to COVID-19 especially with focus on health care facilities supporting and protecting the frontline work force and the community at large from COVID-19 spread.

For that reason, the GlobalGiving platform was used to source for crowd funding from donors and well-wishers in our effort to protect health workers, reduce the COVID-19 spread and mitigate the impact.

Production and Distribution of Alcohol Based Hand Rub to public health facilities

Following the needs of improved hand hygiene for infection prevention and control of hospital acquired infections including COVID-19, SWAP supplemented the GlobalGiving funds and sought funding from loyal donors to produce its own alcohol based rub (ABHR) to supplement the distribution of hand washing stations and soap.

The ABHR was produced in SWAP’s water lab by a team of lab technicians and approval was granted in December 2020 by the Kenya bureau of standards for a period of two years. Since January 2021 the monthly distribution continued to 50 public health care facilities in Kisumu County for all patient care areas. Distribution is done on needs basis while regular monitoring and evaluation is done to observe use and hand hygiene practices. Alcohol Based Hand Rub is also sold to partner organizations.

In September 2021, SWAP extended the activities to 34 hot spot areas in the region. These are local markets, police stations, administrative offices among others. In these areas, hand washing stations and soap were donated and training was done on hand hygiene and social behavioral change communication. In collaboration with the Public Health Officers, ongoing monitoring of compliance and proper use is done.

STREAM disinfectant generation

SWAP imported 8 STREAM disinfectant generators and installed these following training at health care facilities. The STREAM Disinfectant Generator provides a continuous flow of disinfectant solution (0.5% sodium hypochlorite) from common salt and electricity. The chlorine-based solution generated by the STREAM System complies with national and international guidelines for disinfecting surfaces, medical devices, and instruments. The STREAM Disinfectant Generator is ideal for rural and urban hospitals. The STREAM system produces enough disinfectant to treat up to 240,000 liters (60,000 gallons) per day of water. The 8 facilities selected by Kisumu County Health Management Team now no longer rely on the mostly interrupted external supply but can produce enough chlorine for infection prevention and control.

COVID 19 Vaccine Outreach

Because of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and myths and misconceptions around COVID -19, Kisumu County Health Management Team reached out to partners seeking support of the County Expanded Immunization Officers with COVID-19 outreach. The target group was people living in informal settlements where there is in general overcrowding and poor compliance with COVID-19. Many people living here are not well educated and therefore have limited access to health services and have not taken the initiative to go for COVID-19 vaccinations. To reduce this barrier, mobilization was done prior and the COVID 19 vaccination outreach teams were brought to them in Nyalenda, Obunga and Manyatta informal settlements during a two day exercise on 13^th and 14^th October 2021. SWAP supported with the mobilization and allowances for the teams mobilizing, vaccinating and recording.

WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR ONGOING SUPPORT AND DONATIONS

• Global Giving Report October 2021 with images (PDF)