Community Health workers’ vital role in Covid-19

Rumbidzayi Zinyuke
Health Reporter
Community health workers have proved to be the saving grace in making sure that rural communities in Zimbabwe are getting the necessary information on the Covid-19 pandemic as well as monitoring and supervision of positive cases and related deaths.

With most health facilities being far from the villages, community health workers have had to step in to ensure that those who cannot reach the clinics or hospitals, have care and access to information where it is needed.

They have also been supervising burials, thus minimizing the spread of the pandemic at funerals where people congregate and disregard health protocols.

Buhera District Medical Officer Dr Shelton Kwiri said the community health workers had played a major role in Covid-19 related activities.

“The community health workers have been very effective in terms of surveillance, picking up suspected cases and also supervising burials. We have 33 wards in Buhera district but then we only have 31 clinics. This means that some wards do not have a clinic and the catchment areas for our clinics are too big for health workers to reach out to all of them.  This is where the community health workers come in. They have been very useful even in terms of following up and monitoring those who test positive and those isolating at home because some of our Environmental Health Technicians are not mobile,” said Dr Kwiri.

He said the community health workers were also providing daily updates on the active cases, deaths as well as recoveries across the district.

Dr Kwiri said compliance with regulations in the communities had been good especially at burials where community leaders were advising people to observe protocols.

“Our health workers have been doing a wonderful job and we are trying to make sure that they always have access to personal protective equipment. We have had community workers and health workers who have tested positive to Covid-19, currently we have 10 health workers who are in isolation in the district but we have not had any deaths,” he added.