The World Health Organisation (WHO) has trained about 350 Nigerian core responders in readiness for deployment within the first 24 hours of an emergency.
Speaking during the ceremony in Abuja , WHO Nigeria Representative, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, said preparation and early rapid execution of outbreak response strategies are critical in detecting, containing, and mitigating the spread of potentially dangerous infectious diseases.
He said the SURGE training is geared towards preparing a workforce that can be called upon when needed – drawn not only from the WHO but mainly from the States, civil society, and volunteers.
He said , “The purpose of the SURGE is to provide surge support to countries that must rapidly mitigate crises through the SURGE members’ training.
“WHO aims to achieve workforce development to ensure the availability of trained human resources at the national and sub-national levels.”
He said in Nigeria, emergencies, disasters, and other crises increase in number and magnitude daily, affecting thousands of vulnerable and unprotected people. The situation is not promising to improve soon.
Tagged AVoHC SURGE Team, they were on-boarded through the Strengthening and Utilising Response Groups for Emergencies (SURGE) , a WHO initiative and the African Health Volunteers Corps (AVoHC) , a team of African volunteer medical and public health professionals established by the African Union.
Dr Mulombo said relevant ministries were selected to train 75 volunteers and government employees to serve as SURGE members and perform the functions laid out in the Incident Management System (IMS) for four weeks on five modules.
They were drawn from the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), Nigerian Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme (NFELTP), State Ministry of Health (SMoH), Federal Ministry of Environment (FMoEnv), Ministry of Defense (MoD), Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD), National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIA), and Nigerian Police Force and University of Abuja Teaching Hospital.
