In Somalia, WHO and national staff and volunteers from the country’s long-running polio programme have been trained to detect COVID-19 cases. Rapid response teams, made up of disease surveillance officers, community health care workers and volunteers,
are adapting their skills, techniques and resources to tackle COVID-19 even in remote areas in Somalia.
WHO’s national polio surveillance network, built up over the decades to track infection sources even in remote areas, evaluate symptoms and transport samples to the laboratory, is being tapped to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
The polio programme’s thousands of frontline staff also provide information to individuals on COVID-19 symptoms, preventing infection, physical distancing, and cleaning hands well with running water and soap.
WHO has provided laboratory equipment and supplies to test samples for COVID-19. The careful procedures that the teams learned for polio surveillance have been adapted for COVID-19, for example, keeping test samples cold on the journey.
Where access is impossible by road, the rapid response teams work with other UN agencies to arrange special humanitarian flights to ship samples.
It is not without its dangers; in April 2020, the WHO polio team lost a district polio officer colleague to COVID-19.
But the teams are committed to continuing their polio work in tandem with the COVID-19 response.
Read the full story: Somalia’s polio teams help combat COVID-19