Since 31 December 2019 there has been 35,523,518 cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide (in accordance with the applied case definitions and testing strategies in the affected countries) this is including 1,042,398 deaths.
Closer to home in Somalia, a total of 3,745 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 including 99 associated deaths have been reported since 16th March 2020 when the first case was reported. The large majority (83%) of cases aged between 20 and 60 years, with a median age of 33 (ranging from 1 to 110 years) and 74% of the confirmed cases have been male. In recent weeks we have seen the cumulative positivity rate declined gradually to where it currently stands at 11.6%, whilst the cumulative case fatality rate stands at 2.6%.
In response to the life-threatening global public health pandemic, READO with the support of UNFPA has been implementing integrated projects that include RCCE activities against COVID-19 in all Hudur, Dinsor, and Baidoa districts in Bakol and Bay regions respectively, and 9,178 people were reached during quarter three 2020.
The specific objective for this activity was to increase the community awareness towards COVID-19 preventive methods through RCCE activities by mobilizing the community in their different levels, these mobilization exercises were conducted through face to face community mobilization, messages transmitted through stickers and billboards, RADIO, and moving cars with local languages.
In Aug-2020 we supported 350 people in Hudur district IDPs by distributing locally made face-masks to improve the safety of the community from COVID-19, the distributed masks were printed with both READO and UNFPA logos on the sides,
“The facemask distribution is the right thing and it came at the right time to the right place, this IDP community really needed these masks as they can’t buy it from the market, and it looks like a special product to the IDP community since it lasts longer than the other ones we had received”
Abdullahi Mohamed Adan’ a gatekeeper for
Dhurshen-shibele IDP in Hudur district.
Apart from the COVID-19 mobilizations there are a lot of READO implemented activities ongoing in all Baidoa, Hudur and Dinsor districts and supported by UNFPA, GBV activities are going smoothly while the reproductive health interventions are strongly implemented in all those districts by qualified staff
