At the close of his three-day visit to Zambia in mid-May, United States Agency for International Development Agency (USAID) Executive Director of the COVID-19 Task Force, Jeremy Konyndyk, and the visiting delegation met with USAID partner, Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ), to appreciate the contribution of the USAID TBLON project towards the country’s COVID-19 response and to view the CIDRZ COVID-19 testing facilities.

The team visited one of CIDRZ COVID-19 test centers located in Ibex Hill, Lusaka.

See link below for meeting details:

With Support from USAID, CIDRZ was obligated a totalof $3.9 million through the Tuberculosis Local Organisations Network (TBLON) project to support the COVID-19 response across the country

The objectives of the COVID-19 response include:

• To accelerate widespread and equitable access and delivery of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccinations
• And to reduce morbidity and mortality from COVID-19, mitigate transmission, and strengthen health systems, including to prevent, detect, and respond to pandemic threats

With this funding, CIDRZ through the TBLON project has been working with various stakeholders to support COVID-19 response through the provision of:

• Vaccination Support – CIDRZ has been working hand in hand with provincial health offices in Southern, Lusaka and North-Western provinces to increase access to COVID-19 vaccines. Through this support, the project facilitated outreach vaccinations in communities and workplace vaccinations. In order to enhance workplace vaccinations, TBLON has an ongoing memorandum of understanding with the Zambia Private Sector Alliance (ZPSA) to develop a TB workplace policy. Through this MOU, CIDRZ and ZPSA have embarked on a strategy to provide vaccines to employees at no cost. This strategy fosters employees to access vaccines while avoiding the disruption of services at their factories or workplaces.

• Enhanced Bedside care of COVID-19 patients – the project has contributed to increasing the capacity of frontline health workers treating COVID-19 patients by employing 170 short term nurses who were deployed in various parts of the country. These nurses have been stationed in various health facilities in Southern, Lusaka and Copperbelt provinces. This intervention has resulted in the improvement of quality services in the COVID-19 centers and ultimately reduced the strain on an already overstretched health system in Zambia.

• High-quality medicine and medical supplies – the project has procured and supplied the Ministry of Health with high quality medicines, Oxygen delivery instruments, selected medical instruments, PPE and waste management supplies. These items were donated to the Ministry of Health for redistribution to various parts of the country. To date, TBLON has donated drugs worth over 3.5 million Kwacha, with additional drugs valued at more than three million Kwacha (K3 million Kwacha) soon to be procured.
• Capacity building in COVID-19 case management – it has supported training of frontline health workers in COVID-19 case management across the country. Through this support, over 400 frontline workers across the country have received direct training in COVID-19 case management and basic critical care.

The project has also supported experts to visit various health facilities across the country to strengthen systems through technical support and supervisory visits. Additionally, TBLON has supported the strengthening of Infection Prevention and control by training 300 health workers in Southern, Lusaka and North-western Province in Infection Prevention.

• Lastly, the USAID additional fund towards COVID-19 responses has provided for the increased access to Genomic Sequencing.  Through this funding the project is supporting system strengthening in Next Generation Sequencing at the Tropical Diseases Research Centre (TDRC) housed at Ndola Teaching Hospital on the Copperbelt province.