WhatsApp-Based COVID-19 Training for Health Workers

COVID-19 Vaccine Information for Health Care Workers (2023) is a course that has been developed by Population Services Kenya (PS Kenya) in collaboration with Population Services International (PSI) and Ministry of Health. The course aims to equip health care workers with knowledge and skills to enable them to address challenges arising from COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. The course is delivered through the WhatsApp platform, making it easy for the providers to undertake the course conveniently at their own pace.

PS Kenya has partnered with “Tech Care for All” (TC4A) to create demand for the course under their Web-based platform, Medical Learning Hub (MLH), which has a database of over 30,000 health care workers. On this platform, PS Kenya has some online courses available to various health care workers, one of them being COVID-19 vaccine information for health care workers.

To sensitize the health care providers in the MLH database on this course, a webinar was organized by PS Kenya and TC4A. It was conducted on 25th January,2023 between 7.00pm and 8.00pm with facilitators identified from the Ministry of Health, Nairobi County. They areas covered were:

-COVID-19 Introduction and Background
-Introduction to Covid-19 Vaccines
-COVID-19 Vaccines in Kenya
-COVID-19 Vaccine Safety
-COVID-19 Information, Education, and Communication
-Common Myths and frequently asked questions.

The participants were also taken through the MLH website and how to register for the course, which is accredited for CPD points. A total of 163 health workers attended the webinar, most of them pharmaceutical technologists, nurses and clinical officers.

The webinar was quite informative, especially learning about mobilization for vaccine uptake in Nairobi County, where they have deployed different strategies to reach the eligible population with vaccination.
PS Kenya hopes to train over 3000 providers on COVID-19 Vaccine Information Course through the MLH platform within the next two months.

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