WHO Multimedia Library

Reference ID U277LBT

Description Injection safety work in Uganda

In 2015, WHO initiated an ongoing pilot intervention campaign on injection safety in three countries including India, Egypt and Uganda, to provide successful examples and lessons learned, to other countries. The purpose of the pilot is:

to demonstrate feasibility of the campaign and policy at national/local level;

to provide impact data on key indicators, for example the number of injections per person per year, the percentage of unsafe injections etc.;

to evaluate some of the success factors and barriers to technology and behavioural change.

The key components of the intervention are:

rapid review of available information;

political commitment and stakeholder engagement-leading to a local policy;

baseline assessment of injection practices;

procurement and continuous availability of products;

device introduction, industry engagement;

health care waste management;

awareness campaign for patients and communities;

training;

monitoring and evaluation.

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In 2017, with technical assistance from WHO, Uganda established a national Injection Safety Technical Working Group (TWG) which was tasked with reviewing existing procurement and health care and sharps waste management policies in light of the 2015 WHO guidelines on injection safety. The TWG has recommended addressing the fluctuating prices of reuse prevention syringes (RUPs), to increase the number of syringe suppliers, to enhance capacity of the national regulatory agency to ensure the quality of injection devices coming into the country. Issues related to the capacity of the health managers and improving skills of health care workers on use of RUPs have also been highlighted. The Quantification Procurement Planning Committee (QPPC) has not been able to aggregate commodity requirements from the private sector and this issue still needs to be addressed. The TWG recommendations addressing some of the gaps will be formulated into a revised policy in 2018 and will be tabled to wider stakeholders and the Ministry of Health. In 2017, 600 health workers were trained on IPC and injection safety following the October-November Marburg virus outbreak in the Sebei Region.

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Caption was not provided by the photographer. Therefore, a generic caption has been applied to this image.

Asset date 02/19/2015

Country, area, WHO office Uganda

City Kampala

State/Province Naguru General Hospital

WHO Region AFRO

Consent No

File size 5.25 MB

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