INDOHUN Helps Fight the Covid-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

By Training Volunteers and Health Students in Contact Tracing

The best collaborations create something bigger than the sum of what each person can create on their own

Increasing the national capacity in contact tracing, a key strategy for interrupting chains of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, is critical for strengthening Indonesian public health response to infectious disease outbreaks, especially in the light of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. INDOHUN, with the support from the Government of Indonesia and the USAID One Health Workforce – Next Generation project, collaborated with the Indonesian COVID-19 Task Force, FHI 360, WHO, FAO, and the Ministry of Health to develop 9-hour training modules on contract tracing. The modules cover the basic concept of contact tracing, self-isolation and quarantine, COVID-19 stigma, effective communication for behavioral change, confidentiality of patient data, and the use of mobile application for contact tracing called “Silacak”. Silacak is a reporting system used by the public health center (Puskesmas), relevant Health Offices, and the Ministry of Health to monitor for the COVID-19 situation. These modules would be the standard for capacity building activities on contact tracing in Indonesia.

After the module development, INDOHUN trained over 4000 university health students and health volunteers from January to April 2021 from all over Indonesia in contact tracing, who would be able to support the Ministry of Health to trace close contacts of COVID-19 cases. The training was separated into 10 batches with approximately 400 trainees in each batch. Several participants commented that the information presented was easy to understand with fun quizzes to help them remember the information. Participants asked for additional training series to advance their contract tracing knowledge even further.

An officer from the Ministry of Health informally noticed that there was an increase in contact tracing data in Indonesia. A formal evaluation would be conducted to measure the results and impact of the training.