Progress towards resolving challenges with PPE
The large-scale yellow fever (YF) preventive mass vaccination campaigns (PMVCs) aiming to protect over 60 million people from YF in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana and Nigeria were delayed due to challenges to procure and fund Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) supplies for safe implementation in the COVID-19 context. The EYE strategy’s Secretariat in WHE/WHO, with partners such as the Gates Foundation, Gavi, UNICEF and US CDC, have been advocating for a timely solution to address all gaps in IPC supplies, including personal protective equipment (PPE). Even though challenging, this is of critical importance to ensure these vital PMVCs can be implemented in 2020 and essential health services sustained. This challenge has been partly resolved through decisive and agile action by the Operation Support & Logistics (OSL) unit of WHO’s Health Emergency Programme (WHE) which secured 2.4 million masks to support safe implementation in the DRC, Ghana and Nigeria of all YF PMVCs until Q1 2021. Despite this decisive action, solutions need to be found to address remaining gaps in PPE. These solutions should ideally be local. However, countries face competing priorities for resources and attention. EYE partners are therefore called to support advocacy and resource mobilization activities for the local procurement of IPC supplies such as hand sanitizers, soap, gloves and thermometers, as needed, and to plan for longer term solutions.
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