CHAG’s flagship programme on COVID-19, CRIB which sought to support government’s efforts on COVID-19 response; build capacity of CHAG institutions to continuously provide basic and essential services; and share new knowledge on the novel COVID-19 virus through research, entered its second year of implementation in 2021. The project, funded by FCDO, was implemented in 15 out of the 16 regions and in 40 districts where CHAG facilities are the designated district hospitals.
The project made significant contributions to the national efforts in the 40 implementing districts. Critical needs related to COVID-19 for communities in the 40 districts in 2021 were addressed through the project. These needs include fears and anxiety, informational needs on COVID-19, COVID testing, Case Management, vaccine hesitancy, among others.
The Project addressed information needs, fears, and anxiety through radio education on COVID-19 routinely in all the 40 districts on monthly basis and organized press briefings to same communities. In many ways, through the radio education sessions, press briefings, community durbars, and citizens update, residents were offered the opportunity to engage and ask questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Towards the end of 2021 CHAG partnered the GHS to expand vaccine uptake in selected regions with low vaccine uptake. To support the exercise, 940 Samsung computer tablets funded by FCDO were donated to GHS to be given to five regions: Upper West, Bono East, Bono, Central and Western North.
During the year, the project extended coverage of its testing to 40 districts with six (6) districts testing with PCR. From these 40 testing sites, 24,828 COVID-19 tests were conducted. As at the end of 2021, the project had trained cumulatively, 6,664 health care workers on Infection Prevention and Control, inventory management, quality improvement, amongst others. Several homes in rural areas were engaged with essential and factual messages on COVID-19 and thereby helping these rural communities to stay safe from COVID-19. One hundred and forty religious leaders were also trained on communication to address vaccine hesitancy.
FCDO funds supported the establishment of three (3) fully functional High Dependency Units (HDUs) in three facilities in three zones. The HDUs contributed to managing very severe COVID-19 cases in rural areas without referring them to National Treatment Centers. Additionally, forty (40) isolation units were created in the implementing facilities to allow suspected cases to be isolated whilst waiting for their laboratory results.
The isolation units created were head resistant and bullet proof and could be repurposed to manage other infectious disease if COVID-19 pandemic is over. These services created by the CRIB Project, complemented government’s efforts in containing the spread of COVID-19 disease.
To improve surveillance and data quality across the network, the project also funded the setting up a monitoring and evaluation tool (Vantage) and Health Information Management System, an electronic health records system for the network. This will be deployed in 2022. The testing sites were also linked up with the National COVID-19 laboratory network and facilitated quality improvement programme for all the CHAG testing sites. Consequently, all the testing sites contributed data into the national database through the SORMAS.