CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Th world in it history witness an infectious disease that shook almost on the whole countries. Astonishingly, in the first three months after COVID-19 emerged Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, a devastating number of new cases were reported across China and several countries around the world. And it was finally declared as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 2020 (WHO 2020). Evidence indicates that COVID-19 transmitted through respiratory droplets via contact routes such as the mouth, nose, and conjunctiva or eyes (UNICEF 2020). According to the Worldometer (2020) report, the outbreak has been confirmed in over 21,628,638 individuals worldwide and resulted in more than 769,128 deaths as of August 16, 2020, of which 99% cases were found in mild condition. More than 213 countries reported laboratory-confirmed corona virus cases. In Africa, 1,113,246 confirmed cases and 25,385 deaths were reported (Worldometre 2020). Even though the outbreak is a global pandemic, it is important to note that the problem needs more attention in Africa because the African countries have limited healthcare system capacity to control the pandemic (Worldometre 2020). Measures to prevent transmission in healthcare settings are an immediate priority to slowdown the demand for specialized healthcare such as intensive care unit beds, safe guarding risk groups, protecting healthcare workers, and minimizing the export of the cases to other healthcare facilities and the wider community.
The healthcare sector consists of businesses that provide medical services, manufacture medical equipment or drugs, provide medical insurance, or otherwise facilitate that provides healthcare to patients. Prevalent at risk of the Covid -19 disease are the health workers who are majorly personnel whose job is to protect and improve the health of their community .Healthcare personnel continue to be on the front line of the nation’s fight against the pandemic.by providing critical care to those who might be affected with the virus that causes covid-19. Healthcare personnel have a high risk of being exposed and infected with the novel disease. According to Centre for disease Control 2020, there were more than 249,000 confirmed cases and 866 death among health personnel. Thus this makes it a critical need to ensure they comply to the safety measures as drafted by National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC 2020). Apart from the healthcare personnel, it is pertinent for hospital owners, and those in health businesses (pharmacies, clinics patent stores etc) who contribute health sector workforce to ensure that they put in place the necessary safety equipment and facilities to enable them meet up the safety measure as recommended by NCDC. Not only ensuring the provision for PPE are met, it is their sole responsibility to see that both patience and health workers do not take those measures for granted. However According to the World Health Organization, information has it that health sector have not really done much in ensuring they curb the wild spread of this novel disease. Preliminary data finds that they make up more than 5 percent of cases in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and in four of them, health sectors make up more than 10 percent of all infections.The UN agency 2020 attributes the infections to inadequate access to personal protective equipment or weak infection prevention and control measures. This is in addition to healthcare workers being exposed to patients who do not show signs of coronavirus and are in hospital for a range of other services.Risks also arise when health personnel are repurposed for coronavirus response without adequate briefing, or because of heavy workloads which result in fatigue, burnout and possibly not fully applying the standard operating procedures.Also hospital management, patent store owners, pharmacies inability to establish a prior screening equipment at the entrance of their premises, ensuring that patients who needs their services comply to the Washing, Sanitation and Hygiene -WASH measures recommended for the prevention of Covid-19(Covid-19 task force 2020)