eHealth Africa At Liberia’s NGO Fair 2016

In late March, the Liberia International Non-Governmental Organization (LINGO) Forum collaborated with the National Civil Society Council to organize a non-governmental organization (NGO) fair in Monrovia, Liberia. This is the second annual event, and both African and International NGOs attended. This year’s theme was “Strengthening Partnerships.”

The LINGO Forum is composed of an international network of NGOs, and was established in Liberia in 1997. LINGO’s mission is to support and improve coordination between members through communication, information sharing, advocacy, liaison activities and capacity building.

Participants of the NGO Fair were welcomed to the event by Andrew Hoskins, the Country Director of Medical Team International. He spoke about the importance of the theme, and encourage continued attendance of future events. Frances Reeves, Chair for Liberia’s National Civil Society Council, encouraged NGOs to remain strong partners to the Government of Liberia.   

eHealth Africa demonstrates eHealth Tech

eHealth Africa (eHA) was represented by Country Director Aurelio Gomes at the organizations booth, where he was accompanied by other team members from the office.

Nathan Humphreys, Information Systems (IS) Manager, welcomed partners who visited eHA’s booth and discussed eHA’s work. “Technology used by eHA  is very good,” said one of the participants. “If we need data from the field, it takes months to reach the health facilities. But it now take less time, since the application used by eHA can register and send data within minutes,” he said. “I am very impressed, and will have to speak with my office about it.” 

The eHA team presented a video which showed how eHA’s data collection systems work, and followed this up with a real time data collection exercise. The team went from booth to booth using a smartphone to register information from other organizations. eHA data collectors Mark Miller and Israel Kollie sampled 118 individuals from 50 organizations. Data was then aggregated and displayed through graphics via a screen at the eHA booth. Age, gender, and the number of participants entered per organization data was collected.

This exercise showed the incredible value and effectiveness of eHA data collection and analysis capabilities.  Seventeen international NGOs took part in the exercise and were highly impressed with eHA’s health technology tools and opportunities for more prompt digital delivery of health information. Multiple organizations committed to follow up meetings and potential partnerships, in order to build their electronic capabilities in health delivery.

A Successful Event And An Interview On National TV

The fair was a great success. eHA built many great relationships, and looks forward to potential partnerships. eHA’s Country Director Aurelio Gomes was interviewed by reporter James Kaypo on Liberian television, and said “eHA is committed to being a strong local supporter for the Liberian Government’s health initiatives."

Watch the interview video below or on our YouTube channel. 

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJibV1D3nLc&w=854&h=480]

SweetPotatoes: A Realistic Answer for Nigeria's Nutrition Crisis

Net houses with sweetpotatoes pre-basic seed.

Nigeria is among the top producers worldwide of staple crops lncluding cassava, yam, and sweetpotato (SP). Unfortunately, it has done little to curb malnutrition and poverty rates in the country. Regardless of its production of the aforementioned crops, Nigeria continues to rank high in the list of countries suffering from food shortages, food insecurity, and poverty.

Nigeria has one of the highest rates of malnutrition in the world with over 300,000 children dying every year from acute malnutrition and over 10 million stunted children. The percent of children in Nigeria who are too thin for their height, or wasted, increased from 11% in 2003 - 18% in 2013. This is significantly higher than the critical threshold for declaring emergencies (15%).

The prevalence of vitamin A deficiency effects 29.5% of the population, with the World Health Organization listing Nigeria as a “category one” country, the worst rating. Conditions are even worse in Northern Nigerian states. In Kano the prevalence of stunted growth for children under five years of age is as high as 48%. High levels of malnutrition lead to increased child mortality, and significantly reduce learning and economic capacity, effectively stagnating economic development.

Orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP)

Enter, the sweetpotato. The sweetpotato is an important root crop in Nigeria. Nigeria is the second largest producer of the crop in Sub Saharan Africa. It has the ability to thrive in marginal soil, while its broad agro-ecological adaptability makes it a food security crop because it can be grown in all of Nigeria’s 36 states. It has a relatively short production cycle (3-4 months) and its roots and vines can be utilized for both human and animal consumption. The orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) is developed and bio-fortified with vitamin A by the International Potato Center (CIP) and the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI). The best thing about OFSP? It only takes 125 grams of OFSP to supply the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A for children and non-lactating women.

The NRCRI is helping smallholder farmers and targeted beneficiaries, specifically women and children, to fight vitamin A deficiency in Nigeria and Sub Saharan Africa. The CIP is also working in collaboration with eHealth Africa (eHA) to jointly set up the OFSP quality declared planting materials at centrally located multiplication plots/net houses in Bayero University Kano.

Through technology and research, eHA and our partners look forward to seeing how the OFSP combats malnutrition and improves the overall well-being of the Nigerian people.

March 2016 IPD Campaign

Since 2012, eHA has worked with the Nigerian Government, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and other partners to stop the transmission of the poliovirus and completely eradicate the disease from Nigeria. So far this year, Nigeria has seen zero new cases of paralytic polio,  with the last case declared in Nigeria on 24 July 2014. This is significant for Nigeria, which was one of only three countries in 2015 still considered endemic. In Africa as a whole, the entire continent is now non-endemic for poliovirus.

eHA continues to implement polio projects in Nigeria through Polio Immunization Plus Days (IPDs) that focus on Vaccinator Tracking and an eTallySheet pilot. These ensure all children in Nigeria are polio free.

Vaccinator Tracking and the eTallySheet Project

In the Vaccinator Tracking program, eHA equips field vaccinator teams with GPS-enabled phones which are carried throughout the course of IPDs. The phones pick up and track the geographic coordinates of the settlement locations visited. Tracked coordinates are then uploaded by eHA staff into a custom Vaccination Tracking System (VTS) dashboard that state health administrators and partners can access during daily campaign review meetings. These meetings happen at local government and state levels with the purpose of monitoring field vaccinator team movements, discussing the  percentage of geo-coverage achieved that day, and ensuring settlements missed by vaccinator teams are targeted during the fifth and final day of the campaign (known as a “mop up” day).

The eTallySheet (eTS) project is funded by the World Health Organization and the Gates Foundation and provides a digital method of gathering immunization information during polio vaccination campaigns. Benefits include the timely digital submission of data and validation of population estimates (specifically for children under five) in areas known for poor enumeration data, high growth populations, and migratory populations. eHA also provides GPS-enabled phones with Open Data Kit collection forms to locally recruited eTS supervisors. These supervisors follow house-to-house vaccinator teams during IPD campaigns, and record important vaccination data per household visited.

March 2016 Immunization Plus Days

The March IPD campaign took place from March 19-22. While eHA staff usually support vaccinator tracking in the Northern Nigeria region, this campaign involved project field officers being deployed to 10 southern states(Cross River, Bayelsa, Edo, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Lagos, Ekiti and Delta). They carried out vaccinator tracking activities and eTS implementation across 60 wards in 26 Local Government Areas (LGAs). A total of 63 eHA field officers were deployed to train, supervise and monitor 279 locally-recruited eTS team supervisors.

The field teams encountered unique experiences and challenges during this IPD round due to their deployment to new states with unfamiliar terrains and infrastructure. Many ward destinations were a long distance from the campaign take-off points (up to five hours travel time), so some teams were unable to get back in time for day-of uploading of collected data. In some LGAs, teams were delayed while resolving issues with local governments, resulting in long days. Awareness of security challenges required practical strategies to keep the campaign moving forward efficiently.

The eHA team saw great enthusiasm and excitement from local health workers regarding vaccinator tracking. Locally-recruited eTS supervisors were fully engaged in the eTS application training and mastered it quickly. In Northern Nigeria, house-to-house vaccinations were the main focus, however in Southern Nigeria, vaccinations were administered at churches, markets, and mosques.

A Successful Campaign

In the end eHA field officers successfully conducted the vaccinator tracking and eTS implementation exercises for the March IPD campaign. We look forward to the next IPD campaign May and remain committed to supporting the Nigerian government to achieve it’s goal of receiving the World Health Organization’s polio-free certification by 2017.