IOM South Sudan: Bi-Weekly COVID-19 Situation Report Update #28 (30 November - 13 ...

Highlights

• 500,947 individuals reached through COVID-19 awareness and hygiene promotion sessions held at water points and through house to house campaigns.

• DTM carried out 8,228 surveys representing 25,613 individual movements at active flow monitoring points in border areas, internal transit hubs, and displacement sites.

• IOM Core Pipeline processed 11 requests from six partners to provide PPE supplies to healthcare and frontline workers.

Situation Overview

As African countries gear up for COVID-19 vaccination, the World Health Organization (WHO) calls for increased collaboration with communities to enhance vaccine uptake once they become available. Engaging communities increases the likelihood that they will take the lead on issues affecting them, ease access, and use services. It also facilitates comprehension and access to information, enables feedback, and, on the context of the COVID-19 vaccination, helps understand vaccine safety and address possible adverse events following immunization, according to WHO.

Public health systems globally continue to come under severe strain due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic with total numbers of infected individuals reaching 70 million cases, and 1.6 million people have died of the infection globally as of the end of this reporting week (WHO Global Epidemiological Update, 15 December 2020). In Africa, there were 1,622,096 cases and 35,879 deaths, according to WHO.

South Sudan continues to see a rise in the number of confirmed cases, with 3,209 confirmed cases, 3,043 recoveries, and 62 deaths, as of 13 December 2020.