WaterAid, SSDO, ENSG Train Over 100 Health Officers On Disease Control

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – WaterAid Nigeria in partnership with a non governmental organization NGO, South- Saharan Social Development Organization SSDO, and Enugu State Ministry of Health have trained 111 Officers in charge of Primary Healthcare Centers and Facilities across Enugu State on infection prevention and control.

The capacity of the participants drawn from various local government areas of the state, were also built on Water Sanitation and hygiene (WASH) during the two day training workshop.

Speaking to Newsmen at the end of the programme, WaterAid state team lead, Mr. Solomon Akpanufot, explained that “the programme is to build the capacity of the health officers in charge of primary Health Care Centres and facilities in Enugu state on infection prevention and control”

“We are combining it together with the training on Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), so as to enable them to know the role WASH plays in preventing diseases at health centres.

According to him, “the training is not a one-off programme, as we are also mentoring them. After now, we will be moving around the centres, so as to ensure that they put the knowledge gained during the training into practice”

Akpanufot disclosed that WaterAid has provided hand washing facilities to various Health Centres in the state, adding that “in some places we also provided water for the Health Centres.

“So, we want to see the extent with which they have been able to maximize all these facilities that we have provided as WaterAid as well as ensure that they make good use of the training to ensure that everybody in the health Centre are safe, make sure diseases are being prevented and control properly.

Also speaking in an interview, the Head of Programmes HOP for SSDO, Mr Udochukwu Egwim, stated that the training was done to build the capacity of the participants.

He noted that 40 of the officers were trained last year, while another batch of 80 officers benefited from the training this year.

“We are doing this in partnership with WaterAid Nigeria and the training this year is focused on Infection Prevention and Control (IPC).

“The need for this training cannot be overemphasized because we are just coming out of very severe effects of COVID-19, and beyond COVID-19, we are talking about other infectious diseases like Lassa-fever.

“Just last week a case of Lassa-fever was discovered in Enugu State and this is also going to have a multiplier effect and we understand in Water Aid and South Sahara that hand hygiene is very important”.

The SSDO Head of Programmes further maintained that infection prevention and control is very important to reduce the spread of illnesses in the country and Enugu State as well.

“That is why we have been doing training and we know that we have numerous primary health centers in the state and that is why we have been taking this training batch by batch.

“This is just to support the efforts of the government to ensure that infections are totally eradicated in the state and the spread of diseases curbed as well”, expressing satisfaction that the training was carried out successfully according to their expectations.

“We are training another batch of 80 officers in charge of Primary Healthcare Centers in various local government areas of the state and it is expected that after the training they will be able to use their wealth of knowledge to do a step down to other primary health officers in their primary health centers and facilities”.

Stressing the importance of water in promoting hygiene practices in the state, Mr Egwim also expressed joy that WaterAid Nigeria has been providing water facilities in different communities in Enugu State.

“When it comes to water, water is very relevant to infection prevention and control, adding that there are other ways to ensure that infections are being curbed in the state beyond just water.

Several topics on IPC and WASH were presented during the training via slides by the Resource persons who were mostly medical experts and Community WASH specialists.