Alliance with Partners in Health

USAID partnership with Socios en Salud, the Peruvian affiliate of the U.S. non-profit organization Partners in Health, responds to COVID-19 in Peru.

This Alliance supports aggressive contact tracing, community mobilization, and systematic screening and isolation to prevent community spread of COVID-19. The $8,261,090 million investment from USAID mobilizes additional $1 million from Boston-based Partners in Health.

HOW DOES THE ACTIVITY WORK?

The alliance established between Partners in Health and its subsidiary in Peru, Socios en Salud, has contributed to mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable populations, providing quality health services directly or indirectly, through the Regional Health Directorates that channel various activities, both preventive and recuperative. The support program includes transversal actions that consider patients, families of patients, health workers, and has been developing in various regions of the country, Lima, North Coast, and the Amazon. Support for populations in a greater state of vulnerability has always been considered. A group important are patients who suffer from other types of diseases, mainly chronic, which, as consequence of an operational decrease in health services have increased the risk of having complications.

Results ACHIEVED

• 30 rapid response teams to perform epidemiological surveillance and contact tracing: five in the Integrated Health Networks Directorate (DIRIS) Lima Norte, and five in DIRIS Lima Este.
• 116,603 rapid tests performed.
• 31,812 molecular tests for COVID-19 performed in support of several DIRIS in Lima.
• 1 mobile laboratory with capacity to perform molecular testing for SARS-CoV-2 donated to the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health implemented two additional mobile laboratories based on it.

• Improved capacities to provide oxygen treatment in 87 establishments, 27 hospitals and a temporary oxygenation center, adding 552 oxygen outlet points and delivering 141 oxygen concentrators with a capacity of 10 L/min (in Cusco, Ucayali, La Libertad, Lambayeque, Lima, Arequipa, San Martin and Ica).
• 5 health establishments located in rural areas strengthened through the installation of solar panels to guarantee their access to energy.
• 45 beds and 45 oxygen concentrators (included in count above) donated to DIRIS Lima Norte to implement a temporary Oxygen Therapy Center.
• Oxygen support provided benefited approximately 31,341 patients.
• Attention to 473,571 non-COVID and COVID tele-consultations.

• 1,691 deliveries of medicines at home, benefiting patients with chronic diseases, carried out through a motorized service at DIRIS Lima Norte.
• 6,490 Gene Xpert MTB Ultra Rif tests for TB diagnosis, identifying 176 positive samples, 6 of them corresponding to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (DIRIS Lima Norte and DIRIS Lima Este).
• Capacity to handle corpses increased in four hospitals (Lambayeque, Lima, Loreto and Piura).
• A chat-bot for mental health put into service: 2,439 people screened; 1,902 received psychological first aid and 326 were referred to a psychiatric consultation. The staff in charge is making follow-up calls to 1,931 people. This activity ceased in November 2020 when the ministry started the Welfare Service with similar characteristics. This activity restarted in November 2021, managing to screen 793 people through the chat-bot, identifying 363 people with a mental health problem.
• A Quechua language version of the chat-bot put into service.
• 24,555 home visits made by epidemiological surveillance teams.
• 995 patients with clinical-community follow-up for hypoxia prevention.
• 1,013 HIV tests carried out since the second year of the project.
• 10,984 blood pressure screenings performed since December 2021.
• 3,127 screenings to rule out Diabetes Mellitus.
• 25 community health workers made 21,279 home visits to provide health education, carry out epidemiological surveillance, and identify groups at risk of developing severe illness from COVID.
• Social support provided to 7,063 households.
• 131 health sector workers with strengthened capacities for the general maintenance of medical oxygen systems.
• 20 health establishments in Lambayeque, La Libertad, Madre de Dios, Huánuco, Ica and San Martín with oxygen assets evaluated.