Amref to train 1,500 Kirinyaga community health workers

At least 1,500 community health volunteers from Kirinyaga County will be trained by Amref in order to enable them enhance their service delivery capacity.

Amref Health Africa, in partnership with Governor Anne Waiguru's administration, will train the volunteers who have been working in the county.

According to the Amref Health Africa Project Coordinator in Kenya, Eric Keringe, the training programme, scheduled to begin in February, will be carried out through an online platform.

“We shall be working with the county to ensure that the health volunteers are well equipped with adequate skills to do their work effectively," Dr Keringe said.

He was speaking Thursday at Kerugoya Hospital as he donated 4,800 bottles of sanitisers to be used by frontline health workers to protect them from contracting Covid-19.

Building capacity

The County Director of Health, Dr George Karoki, who received the sanitisers on behalf of the county government, said that building the capacity of the community health volunteers is crucial since they are a critical human resource in healthcare management.

“They play an important role when it comes to improvement of community health and well-being by providing important links to primary healthcare services as well as delivery of basic health prevention and promotion services.” said Dr Karoki.

He said that the training by Amref is timely, given that the county and the country at large, are facing the Covid-19 pandemic whose prevention and control cannot be effective without properly equipped health volunteers.

He thanked Amref for the partnership and support.

Kirinyaga Covid cases

Kirinyaga County has so far registered 488 Covid-19 cases. Of these, 453 patients have recovered while the rest are recovering under the home-based care programme. However, seven people have lost their lives to the disease.

Even though new infections have of late been minimal, the county has urged all residents to continue observing the laid-down coronavirus prevention measures such as wearing face masks properly whenever in public, washing hands regularly and observing social distancing.

The county’s department of health is implementing an accelerated Covid-19 prevention campaign targeting control of virus transmission at the community level.

The campaign involves health workers and community health volunteers who traverse the villages educating the public on the need to strictly adhere to all Covid-19 prevention measures and also enforcing the prevention protocols.

So far, learning institutions, public service institutions, bus stations, markets, prisons and police stations, among other places where people congregate, have been reached through public education. Fumigation has also been done.

Special attention has also been paid to prevention of infections in schools after they re-opened.

So far, no Covid-19 cases have been reported in schools within Kirinyaga County.