Mogadishu, 15 April 2023 – The World Health Organization (WHO) Somalia with the timely support of United Stated Agency for International Development (USAID) is helping the Ministry of Health to strengthen and expand the community-based surveillance system in underserved areas, which is essentially addressing the health system gaps and bridging a vital clog between these communities and health system.

Community health workers are being effectively used in crisis affected countries to bridge the health system gaps for surveillance when there is an acute shortage of health care workers.  Learning from its successful intervention to control the community spread of COVID-19 in Somalia, WHO country office has supported the Federal Ministry of Health to deploy over 2100 community health workers (CHWs) and 237 rapid response teams (RRTs) across Somalia. With funding support from USAID, these CHWs and RRTs form the backbone of the community-based surveillance system which has been established last year to support the facility-based surveillance system of EWARN in the country for rapid detection, identification and reporting of COVID-19 cases, including other epidemic-prone diseases in the communities living in underserved and hard-to-reach areas.