Port Louis.  Some 27 health care workers, involving specialists, public health superintendents, medical officers and nurses across five health regions have been trained during a three day training workshop on the World Health Organization (WHO) Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) guidelines, standards, early detection, triage, diagnosis, and controls and other IPC measures. The training was organized at Dr D.G. Jeetoo Hospital from 17^th to 19^th May 2021.

 This training of trainers was jointly conducted and facilitated by WHO and officers from Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW) who attended the capacity building workshop last year. The second training of trainers’ workshop was conducted in order to further strengthen the capacity of MOHW in terms of trained human capacity.  The fully capacitated Health Care Workers will eventually support the focal points in each region to conduct cascade trainings and implement and monitor respective IPC control measures in their respective field of work. This serves as a turnkey event and will aid towards a huge task of training approximately 10,000 health care workers and thus optimizing participation of doctors, nurses, community workers and support staff on infection prevention and control practices.

 Training of health care workers is a milestone in reducing COVID-19 infection risks in the health setting, especially among health workers.  Mauritius, though listed as one of the highest among the 13 high risk countries in Africa region for COVID-19 infection, effectively managed to control the outbreak through rapid implementation of response measures.  However, minimizing the risk of COVID-19 infection among health workers remains an ongoing challenge for Mauritius as for any other countries in the world.

A teach back methodology approach was thus adopted during the training and courses were delivered mainly face-to-face, followed by participants delivering the topics for peer review. Learning and sharing of information was done with the support of few videos and hands-on experience on donning/doffing and hand hygiene.  The trainees had the opportunity to learn through role play the standards IPC measures.  The Training had pre and post evaluation tests to ensure certificate of participation upon completion on IPC. 

This capacity building initiative has been made possible due to additional funding mobilized by the World Health Organization country office through a European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), European Commission.