Operational Considerations for Containing COVID-19 in non-US Healthcare Settings
CDC is working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners to assist countries to prepare for and respond to COVID-19. CDC routinely provides technical assistance to ministries of health and subnational and international partners to improve our collective response to COVID-19.
To facilitate implementation of WHO COVID-19 technical guidance on infection prevention and control (IPC) activities for countries, CDC has developed operational considerations to help contain and prevent COVID-19 in healthcare facilities in non-US settings. These documents were created for healthcare facilities with limited resources (such as staff shortages and supply shortages), particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
Strategic IPC Priorities for Containing COVID-19 in Non-US Healthcare Settings
IPC is an essential component of safe health care delivery. During infectious disease outbreaks, IPC should be focused on priority activities aimed at stopping the spread of the outbreak within healthcare facilities and maintaining essential services. To do this, healthcare systems must focus on three priority activity areas:
- Triage of patients upon initial encounter at a healthcare facility
- Limiting the entry of healthcare workers and visitors with suspected COVID-19
- Identification and isolation of inpatients with suspected COVID-19
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and Project ECHO, is hosting a global webinar series to close the gap between guidance development and implementation of IPC recommendations in healthcare settings.
In these webinars, speakers from CDC, WHO, Ministries of Health, UNICEF, and IPC professional societies around the world discuss practical advice and implementation considerations for IPC in the context of COVID-19. Simultaneous translation is available in Arabic, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
An initial 13-week webinar series was held from May to August 2020. Additional sessions are being held from October through December 2020.
Session recordings and topics for the webinar series can be found here.