United Nations Children Endowment Fund (UNICEF), has trained 40 frontline health workers in Jigawa on COVID-19 case management.
The training, conducted between September 23 and September 25, was organised in collaboration with Jigawa State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (JSPHCDA), Federal Ministry of Health and Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), in Dutse.
Saudat Abdullahi, Health Specialist, UNICEF Field Office Kano, said on Saturday in Dutse that the trainees were drawn from Federal Tertiary Hospitals and Institutions (FTHIs) supporting COVID-19 outbreak response in the state.
Abdullahi said the training was part of responses to overcome the pandemic in the country.
According to him, case management is part of the responses and strategies to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The training is aimed to build the capacity of health workers in the areas of handling and treating COVID-19 cases. It is also to build their capacity on how to avoid and protect themselves and the rest of the community from contracting the disease”.
Also speaking, the JSPHCDA Executive Secretary, Dr Kabir Ibrahim, pointed out, the training was to increase the clinical suspicion of health workers, so as to be able to detect patients and manage them properly.
“The idea is that we should avoid what we called ‘missed opportunity’, where people come in with infections but are not detected. So, the training is for them to be able to detect difficult conditions and identity infection and other conditions in patients. The exercise is to increase their level of clinical suspicion, so as to be able to detect cases and manage them accordingly”.
Some of the participants, who spoke, expressed joy that the training would improve their capacities in the areas of case management, surveillance and infection prevention and control.
The participants added that the training will also enable them to efficiently manage and tackle the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic without being infected or infect other health workers.
One of the participants, who is a Medical Doctor with Federal Medical Center (FMC) Birninkudu, Dr Tasiu Yahaya, commended the organisers of the training, as it equipped them with the required knowledge to fight the COVID-19 in the state.
“The whole idea of the training is to ensure that health workers don’t have this infection through their day to day work, and of course they do not through their practice let other people, who do not have it get it or let visitors to the hospital get it. So, we’re really thankful to the organizers”.
Also, a matron from FMC Birninkudu, Rafi’at Abu, who commended the organisers for the gesture, said it would go along way to eradicate or reduce drastically the level of COVID-19 cases in the state, and Nigeria in general.
“Our main job is to assist or take care of those that get infected and prevent ourselves and others from getting infected”.
Abu pledged to step down the training to her colleagues who did not have the opportunity to attend.
