As of 12 October there have been a total of 10,001 confirmed cases and 71 related deaths in the country. Mozambique reported its first imported COVID-19 case on Maand has seen an increase in cases since then. To date, the African continent appears to be one of the least affected regions in the world with 1,594,750 cases and 38,570 deaths, but the numbers are increasing. As of 12 October 2020, there have been 37,423,660 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 1,074,817 deaths, reported to WHO. It was first reported in December 2019 among patients with viral pneumonia symptoms in Wuhan, China. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 SMS,Ĭoronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a rapidly expanding pandemic caused by a novel human coronavirus: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2). Personal protective equipment SARS-COV-2, Integrated community case management KAP, The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.ĭistrict Health Information System HCWs, This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: Data are available from the UK Data Service (DOI: 10.5255/UKDA-SN-854605).įunding: Malaria Consortium US. Received: OctoAccepted: DecemPublished: February 10, 2021Ĭopyright: © 2021 Feldman et al. PLoS ONE 16(2):Įditor: Francesco Di Gennaro, National Institute for Infectious Diseases Lazzaro Spallanzani-IRCCS, ITALY (2021) Community health worker knowledge, attitudes and practices towards COVID-19: Learnings from an online cross-sectional survey using a digital health platform, UpSCALE, in Mozambique. Subsequently, supporting delivery of tailored messages and education, vital for ensuring a successful COVID-19 response.Ĭitation: Feldman M, Lacey Krylova V, Farrow P, Donovan L, Zandamela E, Rebelo J, et al. Adapting the existing upSCALE platform enabled a better understanding, in real time, of the KAP of APEs around COVID-19 management. A follow-up KAP survey is planned for November 2020. The results from the KAP survey were used to support the rapid development and deployment of targeted COVID-19 awareness and education materials for the APEs.

84% said they followed all government prevention guidelines.

Misconceptions were mainly related to transmission routes, high risk individuals and asymptomatic patients. Results indicate that only a small proportion of APEs listed the correct COVID-19 symptoms, transmission routes and appropriate prevention measures (n = (25%), n = (16%) and n = (39%), respectively) specifically included in national health education materials.

Of 1,065 active upSCALE APEs, 28% completed the survey. The KAP survey, conducted from June 2020 to August 2020, consisted of 10 questions. A digital health platform, upSCALE, that already supports 1,213 APEs and 299 supervisors across three provinces, is being used to support APEs on effective COVID-19 management by delivering COVID-19 sensitive SMS messages, training modules and a COVID-19 KAP survey. While technical guidance surrounding COVID-19 is available to support APEs, communicating this information has been challenging due to restrictions on travel, face-to-face group meetings and training, imposed from May to August 2020.

Community Health Workers (CHWs) in Mozambique are known locally as agentes polivalentes elementares (APEs). Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at the frontline of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic response, yet there is a paucity of literature on their knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) in relation to the pandemic.

Kap survey