Monrovia, 14 August 2014. - The Liberian Ministry of Health (MOH) with support from WHO and partners has embarked on strengthening the country’s capacity to deliver safe and quality health services. To achieve this, a core team of 60 trainers was engaged in a series of trainings in Monrovia on the newly developed Safe Quality Services.

Inadequate standards in Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) contributed to the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) transmission chain during the outbreak in West Africa that reached unprecedented magnitude. In Liberia, the country worst hit at the height of the crisis, fear spread throughout the country, among patients and health care workers leading to closure of most public health care facilities.  In response, the MoH launched training sessions in September 2014 for healthcare workers on the prevention of Ebola virus transmission. The Keep Safe, Keep Serving KSKS) training for health care workers was one of the critical components that contributed to the decline in EVD transmission.

Now that Liberia continues to move from outbreak to restoration of routine health services, there is a need for improved health workers IPC skills.  It is worrying to note that when Liberia was certified Ebola-free on 9th May, clinicians stopped adhering to IPC practices reasoning that IPC was only associated with EVD. It thus became abundantly clear that there was an urgent need for re-training on IPC focusing on Post-Ebola environment.

Ensuring safe IPC practices in health facilities and building an effective, responsive and resilient Liberian health system will safeguard the country from note only future EVD outbreaks but other infectious disease conditions as well. “We need to use Ebola as a stepping stone and not look back. Liberians now have the opportunity to learn from the Ebola outbreak and use these lessons to improve safe and quality practices throughout their health system”, said MoH IPC Chair, Dr. Catherine Cooper at the closing of one of the trainings.

The MoH requested WHO for technical assistance to revise the training curriculum to adapt it to a non-outbreak context. This was borne out of the need to create a culture of safety in the country’s health system to prevent the spread of any communicable diseases.

The SQS training has five components, that is: IPC standard precautions; psychosocial support; Ebola Virus Disease, disease surveillance; and fundamentals for clinical emergency management. The training targets both clinicians and non-clinicians. As is the norm, World Health Organization is the lead coordinating partner in the development of the training package and will also support the MoH in quality assurance and technical training as the package is delivered across Liberia.

“It was very promising to see 60 participants so enthusiastic and engaged and more importantly, ready to train fellow clinicians and colleagues across Liberia”, says Mr Anthony Twyman, one of the facilitators from WHO specialized in Infection Prevention and Control.  

This six-day workshop held at SKD Ebola Treatment Centre, marked the official launch of the SQS training, that will ultimately cover 8400 healthcare workers in Liberia by the end of November, 2015.

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For more information, please contact:

Technical contact:

Dr April Baller, Email: ballera [at] who.int ( ballera[at]who[dot]int)

Communications contact:
Luwaga Liliane
Email: luwagal [at] who.int ( luwagal[at]who[dot]int)