Epidemics and pandemics creep up on us and catch us unawares. Perhaps this has something to do with denying bad news? No matter, it’s a fact we might have managed COVID-19 better if we spotted it earlier as it spread. Africa is no stranger to infectious disease outbreaks. That’s why Liberia community health workers are constantly on standby for the next event.
How Liberia Community Health Workers Collaborate
Nearly a third of Liberia’s over five million residents live in rural areas without phone coverage. Very few own, or even have access to vehicles. According to BBC posting on April 2, 2022, this creates potential hot spots where emerging infectious diseases could flourish.
Florence Fenollar is an infectious disease specialist at University Hospital Institute of Mediterranean Infection in Marseilles, France. She says rural areas in the region ‘are often particularly vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks’. Moreover, she believes leading factors include poverty, inequality, violent conflict, and close contact between humans and wildlife.
But national budgets do not allow for the western practice of ‘a clinic in every village’. However, Liberia community health workers have come up with a homespun solution acting as first line of defense. They plan to spot infectious diseases as they appear in villages, before they become wider threats.
Liberia’s Innovative Solution: Decentralize Health Care.
The Liberia health authority has moved away from clinics serving several villages, to paid trained individuals working in their own village. This positions them to spot infectious disease outbreaks sooner, and give faster warning to the broader community.
Those remote health care workers enjoy the trust of their communities. They are able to respond more quickly and effectively than top-down administrations. There are over 4,000 of them already active in the field.
Last Mile Health is one of Liberia government’s implementing partners for the program. ‘The community health model has proven our best shot at reaching universal health coverage,’ says one of their directors. Because it’s improved prevention and control, surveillance, identification and coordination in a single package, he says.
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