Improving Access to Healthcare in Rural Zambia

The World Health Organisation has categorised Zambia as one of the high risk areas for Coronavirus (COVID-19), due to high levels of tourism and the low capacity of the health system to deal with an outbreak of the virus. While there have been no reported cases of COVID-19 in Zambia to date, we recognise that this does represent a big risk to the communities we work in, and the nation as a whole. We also know from extensive research carried out in the areas that we work that there is poor access to handwashing faclities, and limited understanding of when and how handwashing should be carried out.

In February and March, alongside our usual clinical activity, we have placed an increased focus on health education around handwashing, recognising the symptoms of coronavirus, and limiting travel to Livingstone to avoid the spread of the virus if it comes to Coronavirus. Our aim is to prepare communities and limit risk should COVID-19 reach Zambia. In addition to providing health education about handwashing, we have also provided handwashing facilities and soap at key locations, such as schools, churches, health posts and key meeting points to ensure that communities have the facilities to put their learning into practice.

Improving handwashing will also go a long way to reducing the spread of communicable diseases in the communities, and will help to tackle the rising number of cases of Diarrhoea that we have been seeing since the drought started in Zambia in 2019. Our health education sessions have been fun and interactive, particularly in schools where our volunteer doctors have been setting students handwashing challenges, competitions and races, as well as using songs to help enforce key messages in an interactive way.