Community Based Emergency Response Actions for COVID – 19 in Mon, Shan & Chin States

Background
When COVID-19 truly strikes Myanmar with its full might, there may be situations where our government medical facilities will not be sufficient. Even more Myanmar doesn’t have a proper facilities and capacity to accommodate the very likely surge of the COVID-19 affected patients in coming weeks. It is even more concerning when there has been a constant inflow of returnees from neighboring countries like Thailand, Malaysia, in recent days. Though the government has recently announced that two weeks home quarantine is a must for those returnees, how to enforce them is still very vague and is virtually impossible in many cases. Home quarantine is even more impractical for those returnees and their families who are hardly making both ends meet. Those preexisting socioeconomic situation may lead a severe local transmission, if the government couldn’t make a proper effort for border controls regarding COVID-19

Objectives
Therefore, a set of “Community Based Emergency Response Actions” is proposed with the following objectives for those helpless societies, particularly before having a proper access to government health care services;

1. To provide emergency and temporary health care services to those needy societies
2. To help contribute to the reduction of massive local transmission of COVID-19 if happened

Activities
To materialize the abovementioned objectives, the following actions will be implemented;
1. Volunteer committee formations (with volunteers from village social groups like village funeral services groups, blood donation groups, village red cross association, village youths, etc.) and will be strengthened with experienced and/or retired health workers
2. Provision of basic community health care training (e.g., scouting and history mapping & contact tracing of potentially affected returnees, first aids training, etc.)
3. Establishment of the Community Quarantine Camps (CQC) (by transforming from Religious buildings, play grounds, schools, public resting houses in the target villages)
4. Conducting Community Awareness & Data collection of potentially affected returnees
5. Publication of education materials
6. Provision of Community Care in CQCs

The proposed actions will be mainly implemented by community based voluntary committees, in conjunction with the CSOs, the village authorities and the government departments. For the time being, we have already consulted with the Mon CSO networks and Mon Unity Party for the planned actions in Mon.
Target
The proposed actions will be piloted in three villages of Chaung Sone and Ye townships in Mon State and will be extended to Shan and Chin States if the pilots work well.

Advancing Life & Regenerating Motherland (ALARM)