Kampala, 18 October 2024 – Health Authorities in Uganda contain committed to invest in Group Health Workers (CHEWs) to come health methods in the country. This emerged from the three-day discussion at the third Health Promotion and Illness Prevention Convention, organized by the Ministry of Health (MoH), in collaboration with the World Health Group (WHO), the African Centre for Illness Regulate and Prevention (Africa CDC), and varied companions. The conference was once held in Kampala from October 16 to 18, 2024.
Building on the achievements of conferences held in 2019 and 2022, this third edition was once organized below the theme “Building resilient health methods for illness prevention through strengthening community health staff.” It explored innovative recommendations, digital transformations, sustainable practices, and efficient partnerships to obtain grand health methods able to preventing illness and improving community well-being.
During the tournament, Uganda’s Minister of Health, the Hon. Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, emphasized that the country is now focusing on improving the ability of community health staff to provide first-level, sustainable enhance for health interventions within communities. “Moving ahead, we are focusing on training Group Health Workers (CHEWs) by providing them with comprehensive excellent data and abilities to enhance healthcare companies and products within the community,” she said.
Discussions also focused on key areas for improving community healthcare services. These included the power of digital tools to reshape health narratives and strengthen health promotion efforts, the importance of forging strong partnerships and securing sustainable funding to support the vital work of community health workers, and the need to promote early linkage and referral to preventive clinical and surgical care.
Dr Charles Njuguna, the acting WHO Representative to Uganda, noted that inequalities in access and health coverage disproportionately impact vulnerable groups in our communities, resulting in poor and widespread health outcomes. “There is a need to reorient national health systems towards primary health care (PHC) to lay the foundations for long-term universal health coverage, health equity, and health security,” he explained.
Dr. Njuguna added that “properly trained and supported community health workers can effectively deliver limited preventive, promotive and curative PHC services to improve community health outcomes,” which is a significant step towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3.
The conference also had a session on Uganda’s 50 years of commitment to global immunization service delivery under the slogan “EPI @50.” While national celebrations are slated for later in the year, conference presenters and participants acknowledged the pivotal role of CHWs in immunization programmes, especially in mobilizing communities for service uptake.
Keynote speaker Dr Jean Kaseya, Director General of Africa CDC, praised the Ugandan government’s commitment to health promotion and disease prevention. He also announced that “Africa CDC will support the deployment of 500 community health workers in Wakiso district to support zero-dose childhood immunization.”
Over the past 46 years, several international declarations, charters, frameworks, and strategies have guided countries in achieving universal health coverage by building the capacity of community health workers. For example, the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration on PHC in health care development; the 1986 Ottawa Charter on health promotion action; the 1988 Adelaide Conference on health public policy; and the 1991 Sundsvall Conference on sustainable environments, among others.
All these landmark conferences identified the empowerment of individuals and communities through community health workers as an essential element of successful health service delivery. Dr. Njuguna further noted, “It is a ways a necessity that we all enhance the authorities’s efforts to expand the CHEWs program in the route of the country on myth of it is a ways instantly linked to the Parish Model Model, the authorities strategy of spurring social and financial pattern in communities”.
