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Lao PDR

Laos PDR: Working with communities to ensure early detection of outbreaks

The National Center for Laboratory and Epidemiology (NCLE), Ministry of Health, with support from WHO, is enlisting the help of staff at local health centres and district health departments to monitor for outbreaks of respiratory illnesses. Leveraging the strength of local health workers to shore up its defenses against COVID-19 is essential in a small country with relatively limited resources.

NCLE, with support from WHO, has conducted tens of thousands of laboratory tests for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

At training sessions organized by NCLE and provincial health departments, with WHO support, community health workers learn how to identify and report signals of possible outbreaks immediately on a daily basis, are taught how to use a tool for monitoring and reporting incidents, and are trained on when and how to report potential warning signs to their local health center or district hospitals.

The training sessions will continue around the country for the next year and a half. In parallel, NCLE and its partners will follow up with provinces and districts where health workers have already been trained to monitor and support progress.

The government also recognizes that crucial to community surveillance are religious leaders; monks engage with their communities every day, are respected role models and are influential in their communities, making them as well-placed as the health workers to spot signs of outbreaks.

In April and May, several people who had recovered from COVID-19 were not accepted back into their local communities, requiring help from the authorities to resettle elsewhere. Monks are a powerful voice in combatting this sort of stigma and discrimination, having previously worked for many years on fighting stigma against people living with HIV.

The challenge for the Ministry of Health is empowering monks at community level with the right information and advice at the right time.

On 23 and 24 July 2020, Chief Monks who lead temples in Vientiane Capital met with health officials to discuss community level action to prevent COVID-19 and combat the fear, stigma and discrimination outbreaks can bring, and coordination and collaboration between the government and the Buddhist community. Each day’s session was attended by 100 Chief Monks.

It was organized by the Ministry of Health’s Centre for Communication and Education for Health, Lao Front for National Development and the Central Buddhist Fellowship with technical support from WHO and financial support from the United States via USAID.