The Epicentre IPC team is working with hospitals to get information on essential health service disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research is building on a recent study called ‘the IPC pilot study’, which was done by the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) in Kenya and Cameroon.

This study is looking deeply into how infection prevention and control measures (like PPE, extensive cleaning & sterilization, etc) may contribute to service disruptions, and what the impact has been on these services to patients.

The Epicentre IPC team in Gauteng and KZN are making interview appointments with hospital staff. We are making appointments with the person in charge of the hospital, this could be the CEO, the deputy or matron, or the facility of the hospital. We are also making interview appointments with the pharmacy manager and the Infection Prevention Control Officer.

These provinces were selected in collaboration by EGPAF, CDC and Epicentre. The criteria used to select these provinces included the prevalence of COVID-19, healthcare infrastructure and the location of Epicentre’s offices, which are in Durban and Johannesburg.

This study is critical to finding out what the gaps are in how we are currently preventing COVID infections in our country’s hospitals. We aim to get information to help SA develop more effective IPC protocols (rules), training guides and priority interventions to both support the healthcare response to COVID-19 and be better prepared for future pandemics.