The Federal Government is training Primary Health Care workers on the requisite knowledge required of them to contribute to checking the spread of the coronavirus in the country.
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said this on Wednesday at the National Polio Emergency Operations Centre in Abuja, while addressing the participants at the ongoing National Training of Trainers (NTOT).
Ehanire said that the training was targeted at PHCs, which constitute the first points of seeking healthcare in communities.
He said that the training was to sharpen the preparedness of PHCs and their response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It also aims at building the capacity of PHCs and community resource persons to reduce transmission in the country.
“As we migrate to community transmission phase, it has become imperative to train and sensitise our primary healthcare workers, who are the first point of call and contact by clients in our communities.
“The PHC workers manning the facilities are strategically positioned to contribute to the decisive actions required to curb this scourge,” he explained.
The minister said that through the training, frontline PHC workers and community resource structures would be provided with the requisite knowledge to contribute toward curbing COVID-19 in the communities.
He said it was commendable that the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and partners came up with a PHC guide and training plan to reduce the devastating effect of community transmission.
He said that the development of the training documents and resources were in line with the National COVID-19 Multi-Sectoral Pandemic Response Plan of the Presidential Taskforce (PTF), Federal Ministry of Health, and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
“I recognise that the PHC guideline was developed more than six weeks ago and disseminated to the states and local government areas (LGAs) in preparation for this training.
“I am optimistic that significant control of community transmission will be achieved, if the capacity of more than 220,000 primary healthcare workers across the 36 states and the FCT, as well as in the communities they serve, are strengthened and supported,” he assured.
He thanked donors, partners, civil society organisations, commissioners of health and executive secretaries for their unwavering support and sacrifice aimed at ending the coronavirus pandemic in the country.
Ehanire noted that while the Federal Ministry of Health has worked hard, there was a lot that still needed to be done to improve the capacity and preparedness of PHCs to combat the scourge, which is entering the community level.
In his remarks, Dr Faisal Shuaib, Executive Director, NPHCDA, said that Nigeria was grappling with an unprecedented increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, with an alarming surge of infections amongst health workers.
“Today, the National Training of Trainers commenced by NPHCDA and Partners, targeted to provide PHC workers and communities with the requisite knowledge required to curb this scourge, while protecting themselves in the line of action,” he said.
According to Shuaib, participants are drawn from all over the country with the key objectives of providing knowledge of the coronavirus and COVID-19, understanding the modes of transmission, and prevention of COVID-19.
Other objectives, he said include practice strategies and standard infection precautions that PHC workers should observe.
The NPHCDA boss said that the training would open the eyes of participants to the need for them to ensure that they protected themselves from getting infected and make participants to ensure that they prevented themselves from being sources of infection to others.
Furthermore, the training is to enable participants to render support in the identification and notification of COVID-19 cases.
The three-day national training of trainers for PHC workers across the country was conducted via zoom with more than 220 health workers and the media in attendance. (NAN)
