West Africa Learned the Hard Way, but Health Systems Are Prepared for Coronavirus

West African countries set up health systems in remote areas after learning from the impacts of the Ebola outbreak. Now, these systems are helping community workers detect and prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, say health experts.

“The people that we’re targeting are rural communities that typically aren’t within a close distance to a health post,” says Nickie Sene, Head of Programmes at the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) charity in Senegal. “The majority are illiterate. The information they’re receiving are rumors from WhatsApp or word of mouth.”

CRS started a health project after the Ebola outbreak in 2016, training community volunteers, religious leaders and traditional healers to better detect symptoms and share relevant information with health centers. Today, they have over 400 community surveillance groups covering around 90,000 people, all being retrained, according to Sene, to educate about the latest COVID-19 outbreak.