Covid-19 Guidelines

Our role to play in stopping COVID-19:

•Individuals
must protect themselves and others by adopting behaviours such as washing hands, avoiding touching their face, practicing good respiratory etiquette,individual level distancing, isolating in a community facility or at home if they are sick, identifying themselves as a contact of a confirmed case when appropriate,and cooperating with physical distancing measures and movement restrictions when called on to do so.

•Communities
must be empowered to ensure that services and aid are planned and adapted based on their feedback and local contexts. Critical functions, such as community education, protecting vulnerable groups, supporting healthworkers, case finding, contact tracing, and cooperation with physical distancing measures can only happen with the support of every part of affected communities.

•Governments
must lead and coordinate the response across party lines to enable and empower all individuals and communities to own the response through communication, education, engagement, capacity building and support. Governments must also re-purpose and engage all available public, community and private sector capacity to rapidly scale up the public health system to find and test, isolate, and care for confirmed cases(whether at home or in a medical facility), and identify,trace, quarantine and support contacts. At the same time, governments must give the health system the supportit needs to treat patients with COVID-19 effectively and maintain other essential health and social services for all. Governments may have to implement blanket physical distancing measures and movement restrictions proportionate to the health risks faced by the community,if they need more time to put in place the above measures.

•Private companies
must ensure the continuity of essential services such as the food chain, public utilities,and the manufacture of medical supplies.Private companies can provide expertise and innovation to scale and sustain the response, most notably through the production and equitable distribution of laboratory diagnostics, personal protective equipment, ventilators, medical oxygen and other essential medical equipment at fair prices, and the research and development of diagnostic tests, treatments and vaccines.

Global Strategic Objectives according to WHO

•Mobilize all sectors and communities to ensure thatevery sector of government and society takes ownership of and participates in the response and in preventing cases through hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette and individual-level physical distancing.

•Control sporadic cases and clusters and prevent community transmission by rapidly finding and isolating all cases, providing them with appropriate care, and tracing, quarantining, and supporting all contacts.

•Suppress community transmission through context-appropriate infection prevention and control measures, population level physical distancing measures, and appropriate and proportionate restrictions on non-essential domestic and international travel.

•Reduce mortality by providing appropriate clinical carefor those affected by COVID-19, ensuring the continuity of essential health and social services, and protecting frontline workers and vulnerable populations.

•Develop safe and effective vaccines and therapeuticsthatcan be delivered at scale and that are accessiblebased onneed.
•Mobilize all sectors and communities to ensure thatevery sector of government and society takes ownership of and participates in the response and in preventing cases through hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette and individual-level physical distancing.

•Control sporadic cases and clusters and prevent community transmission by rapidly finding and isolating all cases, providing them with appropriate care, and tracing, quarantining, and supporting all contacts.

•Suppress community transmission through context-appropriate infection prevention and control measures, population level physical distancing measures, and appropriate and proportionate restrictions on non-essential domestic and international travel.

•Reduce mortality by providing appropriate clinical carefor those affected by COVID-19, ensuring the continuity of essential health and social services, and protecting frontline workers and vulnerable populations.

•Develop safe and effective vaccines and therapeuticsthatcan be delivered at scale and that are accessiblebased onneed.