Surveillance Program on Hepatitis A Effect

Surveillance Program on Hepatitis A Effect

            The world’s thinking of hepatitis A virus outbreak aims at decreasing the mortality rate of the named disease and eradicate the disease. This is an objective to be achieved as time goes by. The surveillance for this preventable disease advances as the need to control Hepatitis A widens. Hepatitis A is a viral disease that is associated with mild to very severe states. It is transmitted via the consumption of food with possible viral contamination and water or through physical contact with the infected individuals. Surveillance in controlling this disease is the identification of the populations that are at risk and to come up with ways of controlling the possibility of an outbreak. Due to these plans, nations should base their focus on sensitive surveillance in the detection of any case in society.

During my global health volunteer trip, my focus was on the essence of Hepatitis A surveillance program that would focus on the creation of awareness about the need for the program. Also, the impact of global Hepatitis A, the program seeks to pose the possible solutions to the examination of the disease in the broader view that is not only locally but also in the global perspective. Concerning this, my suggestions to USAID as a federal agency is to give an opinion of a surveillance program that will advocate for comprehensive Hepatitis A control and management, especially in the case of an outbreak. The risk of this infection is associated with poor access to safe water and highly unhygienic conditions. Hepatitis A virus associated epidemics can prolong, especially if little medical attention is given, or many people are collectively infected, causing a lot of economic and life losses (WHO.int, 2019). In the US, San Diego has been reported to have had one of the worst outbreaks for Hepatitis A virus. The epidemic was initially published in 2017. It was so severe to the level that a state of emergency was declared in October 2017.

By December 2017, 20 deaths had been reported with 390 hospitalizations. Los Angeles and Santa Cruz were the other affected ends in the US (ROSA, 2017). This disease calls for emergency preparedness amongst health practitioners with the ministry of health being part because of its dire health issues and the rate of spread based on the fact that it is transmitted via food and water contamination. Therefore, emergency preparedness for epidemics needs to be developed to help sort the different needs for dealing with the infection once it is reported to recur. According to USAID, hepatitis A is a disease targeted for elimination, and prevention approaches are only improved with in-depth knowledge of factors affecting ongoing outbreaks in various nations. Monitoring Hepatitis is essential to its management and control.

The initial step in surveillance of this disease is the health department to involve the creation of a component of logistics in the Hospital’s Emergency Response Plan following an assessment of the virus’ risk in the surrounding regions. A fully detailed job action sheet that describes the duties and tasks of the employees in the logistics department in case a Hepatitis A virus outbreak is then prepared. There is a need for a plan for rigorous and practical oriented training for the department to help in real-life event management in case there is a need for action on the outbreak. These pieces of training have to comprise several aspects of preventing nosocomial infections and infections obtained from the field when dealing with infected people (Ankcorn, Haywood, Tedder & Ijaz, 2019).

Within the identified groups in the logistics department, designate through an appointment plan some skilled people who should be team leaders in situations of an emergency. The experienced personnel will help the rest in executing actions in the crisis. Also, there is a plan for an audit in the logistics system in use in the hospital at that moment with the identification of the most reliable sources of supply in an emergency for aspects like consumables, labor supply, medicine and means of transport (GOSTIN, 2015). Next is coming up with an epidemic plan and relevant Standard Operating Procedures that highlight the way procurement is done, transportation of supplies and patients, drug storage, and monitoring of stocks when working on the outbreak. Further, introduce a management program for all the available shares. These stocks include personal protective equipment, medicine, products, consumables, and hygiene and sanitation. Assess the availability and specialty of employees in the department and work on dealing with situations of protracted crisis. In such a case, ensure more volunteers are recruited to facilitate supplementing the tasks of the department (McClelland, 2017).

The second method of surveillance of Hepatitis A is via community-based monitoring, which involves regular visits to houses, supplementary nutrition centers, and schools within villages by USAID staff and district health officers. Data on the reported or confirmed cases are collected in the final stage, and the information is shared with the local health coordinator in charge of the statistics on diseases.

USAID alone, as an organization, cannot respond to the outbreak of hepatitis A. It is, therefore, essential to have various global health organizations operating handy with USAID to achieve an accurate reaction to this disease. This partnership will ensure consistent and accurate diagnosis and will react dynamically to any case of suspected Hepatitis. Organizations such as UNICEF, CDC, WHO, UN Foundations and America Red Cross are essential agencies that spearhead a worldwide push towards elimination and control of Hepatitis A. Working with these organizations to launch surveillance programs on the impact of Hepatitis globally would be beneficial for USAID (Padami, Alavian & Niazi, 2018).

Communication helps in raising the awareness to the public over an emerging or already spread epidemic and ways to help in combating the challenge. Communication as well as helps in the faster distribution of information among individuals in different sections of the hospital. Communication helps in minimizing or eventual curbing of the spread of infections in the affected places. In this section, one should ensure that mechanisms for receiving responses and operational directions are active and conversant with the emergency action staff. Through an assessment of the previous answers in epidemics, develop an appropriate communication system in an emergency and give the significant issues in the emergency unit priority with the necessary action steps in dealing with responses that pose challenges (Heath, Lee, Palenchar & Lemon, 2017).

To enhance the process of communication in a Hepatitis A virus outbreak, do thorough consultations with other health institutions to help formulate more ways of dealing with the epidemic. Work with the authorities to make progress towards ensuring that the staff and public are aware of the person at risk in an epidemic, people possibly affected, prognosis and action taken, precautions to hold, the role of the health facility and the best mode of health service access in such an outbreak. Ensure that the staff in the hospital have access to essential information for health needs in an explosion, reports for the progress made in dealing with the disease outbreak, and the initiatives of coping with the challenge and, if any, the information distributed by the associated health bodies.

The public should be made aware of the situation’s severity and levels of progress. The information should be straight forward and brief, right with several facts in place, original, delivered on a timely basis, and it should cater to fears brought about by the outbreak (Zumla et al., 2017). In summary, announcements can be achieved in a variety of ways, such as media releases, health facility website notices, and awareness site flyers, forums for community leaders, social media posts, or ads. Also, not forgetting cross border notifications that can be sent to corresponding healthcare authorities when such cases of the disease outbreak have the potentiality in involving multiple jurisdictions, including bordering nations or states through travel. Conversing with health care providers, on the other hand, may include press briefings with health authorities