Namibia received high praise from other governments and WHO for its success in quickly containing and stopping the spread of COVID-19 in the country. Since the first two cases were reported on 13 March 2020, Namibia has had no COVID-19 related deaths and only diagnosed 34 cases. The President of the Republic of Namibia, Dr Hage Geingob, took prompt action by declaring a State of Emergency; closing all international borders, schools, universities and business; and locking down all 14 regions. The Namibian military set up a medical facility at the airport as part of the country’s preparedness. This proved to be particularly important considering almost 87% of the cases were imported with no reported community transmission as most cases are from travellers held in quarantine facilities. WHO and the Centre for Disease Control provided extensive technical support for the two COVID-19 treatment units on 5 June 2020 at the Windhoek Central Hospital and other units built around the country.
Namibia’s response also included educating outbreak preparedness and response teams and staff from public and private health facilities. Together with the Ministry of Health and Social Services, WHO provided a virtual training to help prepare regions to efficiently respond to the pandemic. The training educated participants on a variety of topics including coordination, surveillance, points of entry, rapid response teams, laboratory case management and infection prevention and control, risk communication and community engagement and mental health. The following Ministries and partners were involved in the design and implementation of the online training; Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Health and Social Services, Ministry of Defense, WHO, CDC, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP, University of Namibia, Namibia Institute of Pathology, Namibia Statistics Agency, Ministry of Agriculture Water and Land Reform, City of Windhoek and Namibia Airports Company. The training attracted close to 1000 participants from government, academia and civil society organizations. A second phase of the training is envisaged which will include simulations and more practical sessions targeted at different front-line health workers in regions and districts.
Learn more about the infrastructural development of treatment centres on the WHO/AFRO website
Go to the WHO/AFRO story about the integrated training of frontline health workers