Coalition Launches $100 Million PPE Initiative for Africa’s Community Health Workers

By AIT News Desk On Aug 11, 2020

In the largest mobilization of private resources to protect Africa’s frontline health workers from COVID-19, a new 30+-member coalition announced it has begun delivering nearly 60 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) to countries across sub-Saharan Africa in the initiative’s first round.

Distribution of personal protective gear in Mozambique. Photo credit: Denis Onyodi

The COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa (CAFA) is working in partnership with Ministries of Health to meet the essential PPE needs (including surgical masks, gloves, eye protection and more) of up to one million community health workers serving over 400 million people during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the only known effort to date that pools resources for PPE for community health workers in Africa.

CAFA is anchored by a $10 million commitment from Direct Relief, with additional support from Crown Family Philanthropies, and in-kind contributions from over thirty collaborating partners. In partnership with CAFA, the World Food Programme has committed to provide donated freight and logistics worth more than $1 million. The Fund seeks to raise up to $100 million to supply PPE to community health workers in as many as 24 African countries for approximately one year.

“This is a valiant and essential effort to mobilize PPE to protect our frontline heroes: community health workers,” says Agnes Binagwaho, Vice Chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity and former Rwandan Minister of Health. “By preventing the spread of disease across their communities while ensuring the continuum of primary care, community health workers play a central role in all epidemics, especially COVID-19. As such, it is essential that we, as a global community, ensure they are respected, supported, and protected.”

Responding to estimated needs verified directly by Ministries of Health in each country, CAFA has thus far purchased an initial 25 million surgical masks, 35 million gloves, 822,000 face shields and 974,000 isolation gowns for the initiative. It is transporting the PPE to the ports of entry in each of the African countries, where local CAFA partners will deliver the supplies to the community health workers in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. The PPE will fill the equivalent of nine 747 cargo jets and weigh 441 metric tons. The first 500,000 pieces have been shipped from Direct Relief’s California warehouse, of which some have arrived in Lesotho and Zimbabwe; shipments are in progress for as many as 10 additional countries in first round.

Community health workers (CHWs) are healthcare workers who extend the reach of primary health care systems to communities otherwise underserved by formal health systems. They are recruited from and serve the communities in which they live and work. Community health workers contribute to significant improvements in health priority areas such as reducing child undernutrition, improving maternal and child health, expanding access to family planning services, and contributing to infectious disease control for HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis.

“We visit households. We advise women to take their children for immunizations. We advise women to start their antenatal care visits on time. We manage other cases, like malaria. We need PPE just like any other health worker so we can protect ourselves and our community” – Euniter Adoyo, community health worker supervisor, Lwala Community Alliance and Kenya Ministry of Health, Migori County, Kenya.

While a global shortage of PPE is affecting all health workers, the brunt has fallen on low- and middle-income countries and community health workers in particular. In the absence of PPE, community health workers put themselves and the people they serve at risk. The current drop in access to PPE in Africa has already been followed by a 203 percent increase in COVID-19 infections among health workers. The experience of past epidemics, including the 2015 West African Ebola crisis, has shown that disruption of essential health services often leads to higher mortality rates than the epidemic itself.