Ethiopia

A densely populated country with 105 million people, Ethiopia has approximately 2.6 physicians for every 100,000 people.¹

In 2017 - 2018, in partnership with Assist International through the Safe Surgery 2020 initiative, SPECT trained 65 health care workers in the Amhara and Tigray regions. Following the initial training, 27 participants also completed a training-of-trainers workshop who went on to train over 250 additional workers on sterile processing practices.

Throughout the course of the project, SPECT consulted with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health to provide feedback on the updated Infection Prevention and Control Manual, which governs sterile processing practices throughout the country. 

In a second project, partnering with Lifebox, SPECT created and taught two “Safer Surgical Instrument” workshops in Addis Ababa for 50 health care workers representing three facilities, with 12 of those participants attending a trainer-of-trainers workshop empowering them with the skills to train their colleagues back at their respective facilities.

"Thank you for the training you’ve provided us. Because of this training, we’re now able to practice a scientific sterilization technique. I’ve already distributed all of the equipment we received to each of the sterilization areas. We appreciate all of the support and encouragement". – Melaku Fikadu, Head of Infection Prevention Services at Adishehu Hospital

Research findings on the impact of our training in Ethiopia can be found published in PLoS ONE.

¹ WHO (2009) Global Distribution of Healthworkers in Member States. Retrieved from: http://www.who.int/whr/2006/annex/06_annex4_en.pdf