The Infection Control Africa Network (ICAN), a collective with the ambitious vision of guiding infection control across Africa, has partnered with Project ECHO since 2018 to expand its long-term goal of creating an Infection Prevention and Control Society (the term for each country’s program with ICAN) in every country in Africa.
In five years of close partnership, ECHO support has amplified ICAN’s in-country networks by supporting access to training within resource-constrained settings; amplifying strategies for efficiency and financial savings with partner organizations; and sharing more information to more partners, in less time.
ECHO Innovations
Amplified Assets
ECHO’s knowledge base in virtual learning and curriculum development supports each new ICAN ECHO Hub with: curriculum and teaching tools, a network of experts, data collection, evaluation and reporting, and opportunities for funding.
Increased Capacity to Meet Challenges
These Hubs face many challenges, including: internet connectivity, civil unrest, and high workloads, as well as the need to navigate multiple languages and dialects. ECHO Hubs in this region often experience greater barriers to digital literacy and need additional support with new technologies.
ECHO provides two decades of experience in applying the ECHO Model, connecting program administrators to resources, including in-country networks, governmental support, curriculum development, and tools for working iteratively within specific cultures.
Specialized Curriculum Across Contexts
Project ECHO’s specialized curriculum support is more than writing a base curriculum: it offers a variety of tailored topics with potential broad variations, depending on the needs of the ECHO session participants.
Infection Prevention and Control ECHO Hub topics include:
- Large-scale topics: preparedness for disease outbreak, sepsis prevention, antimicrobial resistance, best practices in prescribing antibiotics, overall program and budget management.
- Smaller-scale topics: hand hygiene, waste management, safe injection practices, and more.
ECHO Impact
After an initial launch in six countries, Project ECHO has collaborated with ICAN to establish ECHO Hubs in nine more countries, and has 12 others in the planning stages.
Established ECHO Hubs, such as the Nigerian Society for Infection Control, have had more than 2,500 participants attend sessions.
- Ongoing Support from ECHO: Each ICAN ECHO Hub offers at least two sessions per month on Infection Prevention and Control, with 50 to 100 participants per session.
- Crisis Support: During the pandemic, ICAN hosted weekly COVID-19 ECHO webinars in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reaching tens of thousands of health workers throughout Africa.
- Established ECHO Hubs for Infection Prevention and Control: Cameroon, Ethiopia (two Hubs), Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa (two Hubs), Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Madagascar.
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