Wash your hands
Wash your hands.
Beyond the Outbreak – Strategies for Post-Ebola Recovery
This toolkit is a resource for organizations and individuals involved in recovery efforts following an infectious disease outbreak, such as the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2016. Its primary goal is to provide governments, donors, NGOs, and survivor groups with guidance and templates for responding to issues related to patient needs and health systems recovery after a major outbreak. Comprised of multiple resources, the toolkit includes best practices and lessons learned, tools and templates, and recovery-oriented research articles, as well as videos, technical briefs, and success stories presented as examples of the health systems recovery work conducted by the Ebola Transmission Prevention & Survivor Services (ETP&SS) programs in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2016-2018. These programs were funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the Advancing Partners & Communities Project through JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc.
The toolkit can be found here.
Cette ressource est disponible en français.
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An Exploratory Study to Examine the Effectiveness of Community Based Ebola Virus Disease Prevention and Management Strategies in Bo District, Sierra Leone
During the Ebola crisis, World Vision Sierra Leone contributed to helping change the beliefs about Sierra Leone’s health system.
This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of World Vision’s community‐based intervention strategies implemented on EVD knowledge, preventive and treatment care‐seeking practices of community members. The study also explores differences between households containing both children sponsored by World Vision and a documented case of Ebola, and those without.
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The Western Area Surge in Sierra Leone
With more than half of the cases of the epidemic persistently registered in the Western Area District of Sierra Leone, and cases continuing to rise, in late November 2014, the need for the ‘Western Area Surge’ was established.
The overall goal of the Surge was to interrupt the alarming upward trend with intensive community engagement and improved service provision over the period 15th December, 2014 to 31st December, 2015 in order to break the chain of transmission.
The Surge was designed around the inter-dependence of supply and demand factors within the wider enabling environment. In the lead up to the Surge, it was evident that the supply side was not adequately delivering services. A lack of trust in the health system and the wider response had developed which undermined any further demand creation. Therefore, the first step in the Surge involved drastically increasing the quality and quantity of all services, and communicating this to build confidence and encourage the public to come forward at the earliest possible stage.
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House to House Campaign: Covering the Country in Sierra Leone
Supported and launched at the highest level, His Excellency the President, Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, went on National television and radio on the evening of 18 September and declared a “sit at home” for the period from 19 to 21 September 2014 to facilitate the implementation of the nationwide House to House Family Sensitization Campaign. Council chairmen and traditional leaders replicated this symbolic launch with similar events at districts and chiefdoms across the country. The MOHS, in collaboration with UNICEF, WHO, other partners, and line Ministries, conducted the campaign.
The goals were to:
• Achieve community ownership and participation in the EVD response;
• Engage the community in contact tracing and mitigating transmission risk; and,
• Lay a foundation for health sector recovery via interactive confidence building.
The objectives of the campaign were to:
• Reach 100% of households in the country with correct information on EVD;
• Increase community acceptance of EVD affected persons, especially children;
• Promote hand washing with soap at the household level;
• Rebuild public confidence and trust in the health system; and,
• Install neighborhood watch structures at community level.
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Hot Spot Busters, a Community Focused Intervention in Sierra Leone
The “Hotspot Busters Initiative” was aimed at reducing and eliminating the spread of EVD in hotspot areas as soon as cases appeared. It became a key element of UNICEF’s response to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. UNICEF and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS), in partnership with the Health for all Coalition (HFAC), a local community-based organization with a network of social mobilizers in the field, implemented this intervention at the ward level across the country.
How does Hotspot Busting work?
A hotspot was defined by HFAC as ‘any two suspected cases from a community’.
The activities of this initiative aimed to:
• Sensitize Paramount Chiefs and traditional leaders on the need for intensification of the EVD response in the hotspot communities, including dissemination of chiefdom by-laws on EVD;
• Undertake intense door to door community sensitization;
• Provide key messages via SBCC materials;
• Facilitate community referrals; and,
• Report on suspected cases.
These brief case studies reflect the contribution of numerous partners in the social mobilization pillar co-chaired by UNICEF and the Ministry of Health
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Hotspot Busters Initiative – Sierra Leone
An unprecedented Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic began in the Kailahun District of Sierra Leone in the spring of 2014 and reached its peak in November. The epidemic which has ravaged Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia has been characterized by WHO as “the largest, most complex and most severe we’ve ever seen.” With cases surging, there was a need to identify “hotspots” of outbreak and coordinate efforts to conduct social mobilization activities immediately in order to reduce spread and educate the community members and empower them as partners in fighting the disease.
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Using Media and Communication to Respond to Public Health Emergencies: Lessons Learned from Ebola
This practice briefing sets out what BBC Media Action learned in delivering and supporting health communication in response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014–15, focusing specifically on their activities in Sierra Leone. The paper aims to contribute to a body of knowledge about how to best harness and deploy media and communication in public health emergencies. It also underscores the need for the global community to plan and invest in communication long before any crises take hold, to ensure that communication plays a central role in reducing the impact of future crisis events.
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Ebola: A Behavior-Driven Crisis Multimedia Story
SBCC Helps Fight Crises like Ebola and Zika
This web-based multimedia package released by HC3 focuses on social and behavior change communication (SBCC) in the context of a public health crisis.
Ebola: A Behavior-Driven Crisis is a multimedia retrospective on the role communication played during the Ebola crisis in Liberia. Using animation, maps, video and audio clips as well as narrative text and featuring original communication materials in a gallery-style format, the digital resource demonstrates how SBCC can help combat rumors and misinformation, provide answers from trusted sources, calm fears, bring together stakeholders for a coordinated response and combat stigma.
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Ebola Barrier Analysis Compendium: Summary of Barrier Analysis Studies on Ebola-related Behaviors
This paper summarizes gaps in the knowledge on uptake of preventive measures for Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), findings from studies that have been conducted on treatment and management of EVD, Barrier Analysis studies on behaviors related to EVD, and the lessons learned from these studies. This paper is primarily addressed to governments, NGOs, Faith-based organizations (FBOs), Community-based organization (CBOs), social and behavioral change professionals and frontline workers, researchers, and program planners. It is intended for anyone interested in understanding the key behavioral determinants that affect uptake of behaviors that help in the prevention, early treatment and management of EVD, other communicable diseases similar to EVD (e.g., Marburg Virus Disease), and diseases that are transmitted by some of the behaviors studied (e.g., hand washing with soap).
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The Ebola Communication Network was originally developed by the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (Cooperative Agreement #AID-OAA-A-12-00058) and expanded under Breakthrough ACTION (Cooperative Agreement #AID-OAA-A-17-00017) both under the leadership of Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. This website is now maintained by Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and its contents are the sole responsibility of CCP. The contents of this website do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the United States Government, or Johns Hopkins University.