Situation Analysis
During the reporting period, 4 major events took place:
1) A sandstorm hit the region in early September leading health actors to activate contingency measures to prevent, cope with and respond to the health impacts of the sandstorm. For example, health partners in the North and Akkar distributed protective dust masks to refugees, participated in raising awareness on how to cope with dust and sandstorms,shared awareness guidelines and identied and referred cases in need of health care.
2) On the occasion of the World Mental Health Day, October 10, a national campaign on dignity in mental health was launched with the slogan “Mental health is my right”.
3) A technical mission visited Lebanon for technical advice on cholera preparedness in order to strengthen the preparations for a potential cholera outbreak in Lebanon and to nalize the Acute Watery Diarrhea National Plan.
4) A two-day polio review meeting was held in Beirut in October and recommended that 2 sub-national polio campaigns take place in 2016 to reduce the risk of polio in Lebanon. The vaccines have already been ordered and dates for the campaign are conrmed for January 25-30 and February 22-27, 2016.
Access to primary health care (PHC) as well as to life-saving and obstetric hospital care continued to be supported at similar rates compared to previous months. A total of 198,770 PHC consultations were supported and 9,196 Syrian refugees received urgent hospital care of which 55% were for delivery care. Community-level awareness activities on infant and young child feeding (IYCF) as well as reproductive health issues including ante-natal care and family planning continued similarly to previous months targeting both Syrian refugees and vulnerable Lebanese in Bekaa/Baalback -Hermel and Akkar/North. Several PHCs and SDCs were provided with equipment and a third new cold room was installed and 2 pre-existing repaired, all in MoPH warehouse in Qarantina, for adequate and optimal storage of vaccines.
969 health care providers at PHC level (38% of annual target) capacity was built through trainings on nutrition screening, management of acute malnutrition, eective vaccine management, reproductive health (RH) service delivery guidelines for improvement of RH outcomes, management of the most common conditions at PHC level. In addition to that, 207 infection control professionals were trained on Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) preparedness and infection prevention and control.