NiCaDe: COVID-19 Response Activities

The NiCaDe project supports the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in capacity building to prevent and manage infectious diseases and outbreaks. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak response measures such as restrictions on national and international travel, many of the originally planned project activities, e.g. on-site trainings and workshops, could not be implemented as planned. The project partners are involved in the Nigerian and the German COVID-19 outbreak response. The project activities have been adapted and a larger focus has also been placed on COVID-19 response measures.

• NiCaDe Subproject 1

  Capacity development in training of infection prevention and control of health care workers at secondary and tertiary health care level

  In the NiCaDe IPC subproject, the core project team at the NCDC is supporting COVID-19 IPC response in the continent and nationally particularly through trainings in different geo-political zones. NCDC Co-Chairs the IPC Technical Working Group of the Africa CDC COVID-19 Task Force and this role is played on behalf of the NCDC by the NiCaDe IPC project Lead. The national team has also developed various materials to guide the outbreak response in the area of IPC, helped different sectors of the Nigerian health system to develop IPC protocols and guidelines and travelled across the nation to facilitate trainings. Materials that were originally developed for the NiCaDe IPC-PALS trainings program are used in the outbreak response. Health care workers and IPC professionals who participated in the NiCaDe IPC-PALS training program in 2019 have been recruited through the project network and engaged in COVID-19 rapid response teams in different regions. In a second step, it is planned that IPC-PALS trainers will be recruited to conduct COVID-19 related IPC trainings at secondary and tertiary health facilities in Edo, Ebonyi, Ondo and FCT. The project team supports them to use the PALS (Participatory Approach to Learning in Systems) training approach throughout the response. Online tools are developed to facilitate the support. The team strategically planned activities to keep in touch with the project’s target groups and stakeholders, to ensure resumption of the IPC-PALS training program after COVID-19 while at the same time supporting them during the outbreak response.

  

  

• NiCaDe Subproject 2

  HepE/Rota-Surveillance

  In the NiCaDe HEV/Rota subproject, the staff at NCDC and the surveillance teams at the current five sentinel sites have adapted by providing supportive services in the molecular testing, active case search and collection of samples for COVID-19 in their respective locations (states). In addition, the project staff at NCDC and RKI are currently engaging these sentinel sites in a bid to expand the HEV/Rota surveillance project scope to include surveillance for COVID-19. This entails surveillance for Flu-like illnesses and Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs) among cases attending the sentinel hospitals. For this purpose, a detailed concept note has been developed, and planned activities include the development/adaptation of SOPs for the sample collection and laboratory work, procurement and distribution of necessary materials and reagents to testing labs, shipment of representative samples to RKI, Germany, for genotypic testing and quality assurance as well as analysis and dissemination of results. With these, the HEV/Rota sub-project would exhibit the dynamism and adaptation expected of it in supporting detection and response to other emerging and reemerging diseases of international concern in the course of its lifespan in Nigeria.
• NiCaDe Subproject 3

  Supporting implementation of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance and diagnostic stewardship

  In the NiCaDe AMR subproject, the project microbiologists at NCDC are responsible for the management of SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics in Nigeria and other coworkers are involved in the COVID-19 response, e.g. in the area of IPC. Regular exchanges have continued between the project epidemiologists in Nigeria and Germany and selected COVID-19-related updates and insights regarding the outbreak have been shared. In addition, other originally planned activities may be adapted with digital communication tools, e.g. on-site trainings are now planned as online trainings, to allow for continued capacity-building to improve the overall use of diagnostics. An online meeting will be held in early summer 2020 to explore additional potential activities, such as analyzing the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on rates of antibiotic use and resistance.

  

Conclusion