Created: 11 January 2021
Thirty-two-year-old Mariam Traoré, a community health worker in Mali, starts her day with a COVID-19 self-check, including body temperature and other symptoms such as cough, sore throat, loss of smell or taste. If all is good, Ms. Traoré then gears up with a mask and face shield before leaving her house in Yirimadio, a district on the outskirts of the capital Bamako. She remembers to carry enough gloves to protect herself and others when visiting patients across her local town.
The WHO defines Community Health Workers (CHWs) as lay people who live in the communities they serve and who function as a critical link between those communities and the primary-healthcare system. In Africa, they provide low-cost interventions for common maternal and paediatric health problems such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, undernutrition, malaria, HIV, measles and now COVID-19. They also assist with immunization.