eHealth Africa supports Sierra Leone’s Public Health Services for better response to public health emergencies

By Uche Ajene

The first-documented most widespread and deadly outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in West Africa devastated three countries: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The outbreak started in May 2014 and by November 2014, during the height of the outbreak, Sierra Leone recorded over 500 new cases of Ebola a week. By October 2015, a total of 8,704 EVD cases had been diagnosed, and 3,589 people had died of Ebola in Sierra Leone.

This disease caught the country’s Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) by surprise. The outbreak could not be effectively managed because the country did not have the requisite capacity (structure and staff) and systems -Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), policies and plans, to effectively manage and mitigate the risks posed by the disease.

Ebola’s destruction on the peoples of Sierra Leone and the absence of appropriate structures to deal with future outbreaks, prompted the establishment of Public Health National Emergency Operations Center (PHNEOC) in  June 2015, as a coordination structure charged with the responsibility of providing public health emergency preparedness leadership, scientific and technical situational awareness and advice at a national level.

As Sierra Leoneans reflect on the atrocities of Ebola and other emergencies, this question becomes inevitable: Is Sierra Leone better prepared to address any future public health emergencies?

To better prepare for future outbreaks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and eHealth Africa, conducted successful trainings for health workers and other stakeholders on Public Health Emergency Management, Risk Communication,Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA), Incident Management Systems and Public Health Operations and Management. These training sessions were done in Bo, Bombali districts and Western Area Urban with the involvement of health workers, district councillors, the national security agency and members of the agricultural sector. These trainings are geared towards improving the PHNEOC’s capacity to better prepare for health-related emergencies.

The PHNEOC/MoHS as beneficiaries have acquired increased knowledge on the method of approach in risk mitigation, analysis, preparedness, response, and recovery. For instance, EOC Focal Persons have been trained in all districts in Sierra Leone to decentralize command and control approach which has provided the necessary pace, efficiency, and structure for response efforts and foster real-time reporting and bridged the gap in communication from the districts EOC’s to the national EOC. eHA, with support from CDC, has embarked on introducing tools that seek to improve the coordination strategy of the PHNEOC such as the Virtual  Emergency Operations Center (EOC) communication platform tool. eHA has partnered with MoHS with support from CDC to train about 200 PHNEOC/MoHS staff on various public health emergency topics such as tabletop simulation exercises on Cholera and Lassa Fever; Executive Management training and Virtual EOC training.

“I have participated in several trainings, I must confess that knowledge gained in this training is exceptional and can contribute meaningfully in any future outbreak and also benefit my District Health Management Team (DHMT) with management skills.”

— Sahr Amara Moiba

Virtual EOC training participants

Sahr Amara Moiba, District Surveillance Officer and EOC focal person in Kono district, is one of the 200 beneficiaries of the EMP training.

In 2018, there was a Measles outbreak in Pujehun and Kambia district. The EOC focal persons in these districts sent in a daily situational report to the national EOC which was presented to partners during the daily briefing meetings held at the EOC.

As part of the effort to strengthen the PHNEOC preparedness and response capacity, and also improve on the country’s Joint External Evaluation scores, eHA in collaboration with MoHS with support from CDC, developed SOPs for public health response. These SOPs will help improve on the response strategy of the PHNEOC in a coordinated way.

“These SOPs will help foster a coordinated response in an event of any public health emergency.”

— Mukeh Fambulleh, Program Manager of the PHNEOC

Meet the Team - Sylvia Kalley

Meet Sylvia Kalley, our Grants and Contracts Senior Manager,  who works in our Sierra Leone office!

Sylvia joined eHealth Africa (eHA) approximately 2 years ago. She plays an integral role at eHA, as she supports the entire project and program portfolio of eHA, across our country offices. She leads the grants and contracts department and is ultimately responsible for the effective management of the full life cycle of projects, from pre-award to close-out.

She manages a team of four, who all contribute to ensuring that the Grants Management office meets the requirements of our clients. When Sylvia first joined the team, she focused on identifying gaps with regards to Grants Management and better internal controls for meeting donor requirements and fostering accountability, in her first year. Now, in her second year, she leads her team to address those gaps and create solutions for better grants and contracts management.

Sylvia’s biggest contribution has been the formalizing of the Grants Management Office including the establishment of the New Business Development Department. Having a formalized office allows for a one to one ratio between a member of our department and each contract within the eHA portfolio. This oversight allows the organization to meet the requirements of each of its contracts as well as improve our credibility with our clients.

Sylvia is particularly proud of her achievements in streamlining the Award Set Up Process for the organization. Before the establishment of this process, visibility regarding signed contracts was quite limited to a few. In collaboration with the larger Finance & Administration team, they created a thorough award set up and project extension notice which provides key information to set up a project in their accounting system once the official contract is signed.

We are happy and proud to have Sylvia as part of our eHealth Africa team.

Would you like to be a part of our team? Click here to find out more.

Building Ecosystems that Drive Change

Our experience and track record working to implement projects across our focus areas have shown us that without a unified, collaborative approach, interventions tend to be ineffective and sometimes, inappropriate for the contexts that we work in. We know that solutions and systems are more impactful when they are built in proximity to the environments in which they are needed, and in partnership with stakeholders who have a close grasp of the challenges to be addressed.

Our goal is to build solutions that address local needs harnessing the power of technology and data. Therefore, we invest in growing the tech ecosystem and sharing our knowledge, lessons, and experience with our partners.
We host meetups and hackathons to create platforms for innovative organizations and individuals to share their work with the global tech community and to support governments with real, context-appropriate solutions to their development challenges. Recently, our GRID3 team partnered with CoLab Innovation Hub, the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics (KDBS), the Kaduna State Budget and Planning Commission, the Kaduna State Government, and Kaduna ICT Hub to hold KadHack2018, a first of its kind hackathon aimed at providing software developers and stakeholders in the technology sector to engage the Kaduna state government and gain firsthand insight into the challenges in the Education and Health sectors, in order to come up with software prototypes that could be further developed to solve problems within those sectors.

Currently, most learning and education in Nigeria’s tech field are driven by the individuals themselves using resources, which are often external and not based on local challenges. An ecosystem should be self-sufficient. This means that members of the ecosystem should be able to learn, grow, earn and contribute to building the ecosystem. To this end, eHealth Africa is interested in further building the tech ecosystem in Kano State as a pipeline for developing tech talent to build solutions for the local context. Our software team is hosting its March tech meetup on the 30th of March, 2018 at the eHA Kano Campus by 12 pm. The event will feature in-depth knowledge sharing sessions with our team using real, relatable challenges and practical solutions. Read about our last meetups in Berlin and Kano.

If you are interested in gaining more knowledge to build software solutions that address challenges in health, education, and agriculture, then, register to attend the event here.

eHealth Africa and partners boost Sierra Leone’s surveillance capacity through 117 Call Center

By Uche Ajene

Photo caption: Alexander Taylor, 117 Call Center Manager conducted a tour of the upgraded facility

Between 2018 and 2019, eHealth Africa (eHA) and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) worked together to ensure that Sierra Leone’s surveillance efforts were strengthened through the use of 117 Call Center.

The 117 Call Center is a Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation initiative that was set up in 2012 as part of a wider support system to improve maternal and child health. In 2014, eHA partnered with the Ministries of Health (MOH) in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone to scale up existing universal toll-free numbers to become Ebola focused call centers. The 117 Call Center was scaled-up in response to the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak - to serve as a tool to document, track and provide follow-up on suspected EVD cases and deaths. The 117 Call Center provides an early warning mortality and syndromic surveillance system tool that can detect, prevent and respond to disease outbreaks. Communities are sensitized to call the 117  line and report all deaths, suspicious illnesses, and events. In Sierra Leone, the 117 Call Center has helped to solve many issues like improving community death reporting through mortality surveillance; real-time alert reporting for infectious death, increasing alert and data support to the maternal & perinatal disease surveillance.

Recently, the 117 Call Center has seen major transformation-from extending the facility and giving it a facelift, to upgrading software for a more efficient system that the peoples of Sierra Leone can trust and utilize.

“We have upgraded the call center software for a more accurate and precise data collection. Our community health workers play a very vital role in reporting cases to 117. We have added a new caller category of Community Health Workers. We also provided internet services for all the districts for real-time reporting and data collection for 117. We have also improved on our SMS software service that now provides a single text code to a caller to receive the burial code which confirms that they have indeed called 117.”

— Sally Williams, 117 Project Manager, eHA.

In an effort to get the districts more engaged, 117 is not just centralized in Freetown. Alert desks have been set up in all 14 districts with District and Data coordinators there to manage the calls in real time.

“The 117 Call Center is making positive strides in the country and the upgrade has taken it to international standard. 117 is easier to rebrand, given its popularity across the country.”

— Dr. A.J. Moosa, Deputy Director - Health Security and Emergency.

Strengthening the surveillance system in Sierra Leone through the 117 Call Center is an unending quest.

“We are planning on re-branding 117 and utilizing the social mobilization officers especially in the districts so that we can reach a greater number of our communities and encourage people to call 117 for any and all emergencies!”

— Sally Williams

The 117 Call Center actively participates in the Surveillance Technical working group of the government of Sierra Leone’s One Health Approach Initiative, where the most updated information is shared as received via our call centers to guide interventions. Every day, the 117 Call Center is striving to produce better quality data to drive the evidence-based approach when handling public health issues in the country.

International Women’s Day Spotlight: #BalanceforBetter

International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements and contributions of women. The day has been celebrated for well over a century, since 1911 and draws attention to the need for more progressive mindsets, inclusive behaviors and continuous efforts from everyone, everywhere and at every level, to promote women’s equality.

Balance is not a women's issue, it's an economic issue. Gender equality and women empowerment are central to the attainment of all the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. This year’s theme, #BalanceforBetter highlights the value that women add to their families, communities, economies, and to the world; as well as the contributions that they can bring to the table if they are given seats. Achieving balance requires that the voices and experiences of both men and women are considered and integrated at the inception of policies, innovations, and programs. No one should be left behind.  

Here at eHealth Africa, we embrace gender balance and we recognize its role in ensuring that businesses and projects, including ours, thrive. eHealth Africa is an equal opportunity employer and we have put policies in place that support both men and women to achieve their professional and personal goals. Our workplace policies on diversification and maternity leave challenge stereotypes in the workplace and encourage women at every stage of life to maintain the balance between their roles in their personal and professional lives. We are especially proud of the gender balance in our leadership. Our board of directors is 60% female and most members of our senior management team, are women.

Today, we recognize and thank the women we have worked with—the mothers who take their children to the health facilities we support, the female health workers who mobilize them, our staff at our country offices who create tools for collecting and analyzing reliable, real-time data and the women in governments across Africa, who plan programs and formulate policies that shape health systems.

We can all do something to support gender balance for a better world. Put your hands out and strike the #BalanceforBetter pose, as we celebrate women all over the world!