Project news 5 : Socialization of EWARS Flipchart as IEC and Screening Tools in Banten

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH), Indonesia organized a workshop on Socialization of EWARS Flipchart as IEC and screening tools in Banten, 29 – 30 May 2023. The workshop was held in auditorium of Banten Provincial Health Office and attended by over 30 participants of MOH, WHO, Banten PHO, clinician and surveillance personnel from Puskesmas and health office; Pandeglang district, Lebak district, Cilegon city, and Tangerang city.

The workshop was to introduce the use of EWARS flipchart as simple tools to define temporary diagnose of infectious diseases, by conducting screening of sign and symptoms are experiencing by patients. Proper case definition at Puskesmas/Primary health care is very important as early detection stage to catch the suspect cases of diseases which monitored by the EWARS, due to its potential to become an outbreak. Thus, the usage of flipchart is expected to improve the sensitivity of the case definition and strengthening the EWARS at the frontline level. The flipchart consists of several parts; (1) How to conduct screening and diagnose, (2) Information about diseases, (3) Steps for treatment, (4) Laboratory test needs to be taken, (5) Surveillance reporting, (6) the equivalent of ICD-10 and EWARS code and also threshold of KLB/outbreak for each disease. The information about diseases also can be used as IEC (Information, Education and Communication) tools from health officers to the patients.

All participants are happy to learn and discuss together, and interested in role playing activities. They can practice on how to define and diagnose cases based on the examination on patients using the screening part of the flipchart. They gave good impression since the tools so practical. Some improvements needed to simplify the language and make it easier to be read.
At the 2nd day of the workshop, there was trial in their actual field work. Thus, participants use the flipchart in actual setting for the patients. The Puskesmas clinician can detect some suspects of ILI and COVID-19 using the screening part of the flipchart. It was delighted to see the flipchart is fruitful.

Head of Banten Provincial Health Office, Dr. dr. Hj. Ati Pramudji Hastuti, MARS gave appreciation to JICA EWARS Project and MOH for this valuable activity and expect the momentum to exchange the information, improve coordination and cooperation among stakeholders. dr. Triya Novita Dinihari from MOH and Mr. Isamu KUBOKI from JICA EWARS Project committed to continue the activity to improve and strengthening the implementation and quality of EWARS.