General
10. The Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Infection Protection and Control (IPC) interventions are, in principle, part of an operational response program with an overall public health objective. They are considered as either preventive or curative measures. Preventive measures aim to prevent sanitary conditions presumed (or suspected) to harbour, transmit or cause diseases in a target population. Curative measures aim to improve "poor" conditions known to harbour, transmit or cause diseases to a targeted population. OSL provides technical and operational support in both WASH and IPC components during emergency responses in coordination with the Incident Management Team (IMT).
Below are examples of WASH and IPC interventions:
- Water provision;
- Sanitary conditions improvements;
- Health care waste management;
- Vectors control;
- Hygiene promotion;
- Infection Control measures implementation;
- Safe and Dignified Burials.
Water Sanitation and Hygiene and Infection Prevention and Control Principles (WASH & IPC)
20. Values and Principles: All WASH and IPC activities aim to implement the Organisation's operations principles by contributing to the relief of suffering and to people's dignity.
- Specifically, activities support water quality control by ensuring the implementation of quality standards indicated in WHO guidance.
30. Intervention limitations: While the Organisation's principles and ethical values provide a wide scope for WASH and IPC interventions, the operational mandate, technical capacities and financial resources may limit the scope of WASH and IPC interventions.
Therefore, the WASH and IPC interventions should;
- Only be applied in response to the operational needs and overall health objective;
- only be implemented if it suits the OSL WASH/IPC interventions prerequisite;
- Be proportional to the operation requirement and address the real needs.
40. WASH and IPC Implementation Process:
A key emergency WASH/IPC principle is rapid infrastructure deployment and system installation.
Therefore, predefined and simplified WASH/IPC emergency requirements for goods and processes ensure the rapid provision of critical commodities to frontline teams and appropriate medical care. These requirements also reduce any delay in the overall emergency response operation. This is in line with WHO's "No Regrets" policy.
WASH & IPC sectors definition
50. Water provision: OSL is responsible for providing safe and sufficient quantities of water following SPHERE recommendations within the supported health structures and in the camp setting for the IMT deployment.
60. Sanitary conditions improvements: OSL is responsible for maintaining the sanitary conditions within the health structures involved in the emergency operation. OSL also provides support on ensuring quality standards accordingly. Specifically regarding isolation units. OSL is responsible for ensuring feces containment, consequently blocking possible disease transmission.
70. Health care waste management: As part of sanitation improvement, OSL is engaged in developing and promoting the WHO management standards on solid medical waste and implementing requested structures and processes, either within the medical structures and/or external medical activities, such as vaccination or Safe and Dignified Burial (SDB).
80. Vectors control: OSL provides technical and operational support on basic vector control activities within the health structures and/or within public health interventions in the anti-vector activities. Support focuses on reducing the presence of vectors and vector breathing sites around the operational structures, thus reducing the risk of exposure to patients.
90. Hygiene promotion: OSL provides technical and operational support to implement emergency IPC measures. Specifically, OSL ensures that basic and standard hygiene measures and associated health activities are maintained within the health facilities.
100. Infection, Prevention Control Measures (IPC): OSL, in coordination with medical teams and IMT, provides technical and operational support to implement appropriate IPC measures during emergency responses. Technical assistance tends to focus on but is not limited to, designing and setting up operational isolation units in different contexts (Ebola, cholera, plague, influenza, etc.) and field hospitals or medical care structures.
110. Safe and Dignified Burials (SDB): Relying on IPC and social mobilization, OSL, in collaboration with international (IFRC, UNICEF, etc.) and local partners, conducts Safe and Dignified Burial activities (SDB). When in charge, OSL defines the SDB strategy locally with local actors, grooms and develops local capacities to deploy SDB teams, accompanies with operative mentors' teams during their development, supervises their performances, monitors stress and ensures their safety.
Emergency WASH and IPC Deployments
120. Operations Support Logistics (OSL) responsibilities: OSL maintains WHO standards for WASH and IPC in health structures during emergency response phases. OSL supports staff and technical equipment. Support may be provided in different ways, such as providing remote or onsite technical assistance, developing and disseminating specific emergency operational kits and modules and/or improving team capacity through training.
130. OSL HQ: OSL/HQ leads the technical support in coordination with Regional and WHO Country Offices, depending on the capacity and availability of staff. OSL/HQ also provides guidance on kits and modules, guidelines and policy development and provides surge capacity when graded emergencies require it.
140. OSL Regional Office: OSL/RO provides human resources support for the regions, promotes technical standards across the different Country Offices, builds regional capacity and disseminates Logistics technical guidelines, tools and WHO Kits.
150. OSL COs: When the function is present, OSL provides local technical support and is responsible for keeping standards in the emergency WASH/IPC stocks and activities. OSL Country Office is usually part of the first team reaching the field of operation and, consequently, often responsible for first needs assessment.
160. Coordination with other partners: OSL WASH/IPC technical support is principally focused on running operational health facilities in collaboration with other WASH and IPC partners. In addition, OSL plays a connexion role between Health and WASH clusters, addressing technical WASH/IPC needs in accordance to the medical intervention.
