CIDD-UG Engaged the Pallisa District Covid 19 taskforce to prioritize community engagement and use of social media to help raise awareness for mitigation of surging community infections as well as provide basic sanitary kits to adolescent girls to enhance community coping mechanism.

Five weeks into the outbreak of the second wave of COVID-19, thirteen people in Pallisa District have succumbed to the pandemic while the confirmed cumulative cases within the same period are 309 including 20 health workers. 163 of these are on active home based care, 296 on cumulative home based care and 96 recoveries. Over half of these (160) are from Pallisa Town Council, which now appears to be the epicenter of the pandemic in Pallisa district. The other most affected sub counties are Olok and Pallisa although the problem spread to all sub counties. This prompted CIDD-UG as a member of the District Task Force to prioritize conducting rapid assessment with three threefold objective highlighted as;

First, Assess the level of knowledge about presence of COVID-19, its effects and level of community response to the lockdown, second, establish the degree of community adherence to the established COVID-19 mitigation strategies and compliance to treatment guidelines by those on home based care, third determine the impact of lockdown on the most vulnerable groups then make recommendations for improvement.

The rapid assessment findings established weak sub county and village COVID-19 structures that have led to increased vulnerabilities, as a result cases of GBV, sexualized violence against girls and women, child labor, unwanted pregnancies and early marriages are increasingly affecting the most at risk groups.

While 80% of the rural population is aware about the presence of COVID-19 and its virulence, the 20% were still pensive and having various theories including politics by the authorities that be.

Whereas 90% of the urban population in Pallisa district was knowledgeable about COVID-19 and its effects, 10% were still relating it to politics and other theories.

Over 85% of the young people indicated social media and peers as the greatest sources of information about COVID-19.

The assessment also established that whereas the level of community awareness about presence of about COVID-19 and its effects is high, it is not matched with adherence to the requisite mitigation practices (SOPs) and compliance with treatment guidelines by those on home based care. This is due to several factors that include among others deep rooted and long standing cultural practices, high poverty levels with weak grassroots structures and inadequately facilitated enforcement organs all of which call for among others community engagement through intercultural dialogue.  

Community engagement as recommended by CIDD-UG is critical in creating local and context-specific solutions for prevention and control responses. The bottom-up approach where communities participate in generating solutions to local problems will not only reduce health inequalities but also enhance observance of measures to prevent and control the pandemic such as social distancing, community case identification and management as well as understanding how the different social dynamics in communities can be leveraged to minimize impact of the epidemic

As a result, CIDD-UG proposal of upstaging the community engagement was adopted by the DTF to help in mitigating the surging community infections of COVID-19 in Pallisa District. Read full report HERE (Click to Download).