Fighting Covid-19 with the Power of Motorcycles - June Update
Now that the numbers are rising, the impact of coronavirus is being felt in the regions where we work; The Gambia, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria and Liberia.
According to World Health Organisation figures there have now been 5000 deaths and over 190,000 cases of COVID-19 recorded across the African continent. This is evidence that coronavirus is a growing threat to communities where health care systems are already weak and a population whose health is already fragile.
“People live in hard to reach areas. People are frightened. They don’t have information and they don’t know how to protect themselves and their families. We need to deliver care and education to the remote communities.”
The teams of motorcycle health workers that Two Wheels for Life supports are now vital in helping prevent the spread of the disease. They are carrying out contact-tracing in remote COVID-19 hot-spots in Lesotho and in Lesotho and Nigeria are taking samples from test sites to laboratories for rapid diagnosis.
Across all the country programmes we support health workers are getting nurses, doctors, midwives and other front-line health workers out to the most rural communities on very challenging terrain.
Because of the support we provide these heath workers are prepared. They have motorcycles plus the necessary training and equipment, as well as PPE and sanitiser so they can safely provide remote communities with care and information about what they can do to protect their families and community.
Motorcycles are once again proving to be a essential in the fight disease across Africa. David Nabarro, World Health Organisation Special Envoy for COVID-19 recognises this saying:
Motorcycles play a vital role in enabling remote communities in Africa to defend themselves against COVID-19 and give them regular access to essential, community-based health services.
It is only because of the reliable transport that we offer that governments in these poorer nations can deliver information, provide care and prevent the spread of disease to the 60% of Africans who live in remote communities.
