In December 2023, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) hosted the inaugural conference of PALS in Nigeria’s capital Abuja. About 180 IPC practitioners from health facilities, university teaching hospitals, governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations convened to deliberate on “Catalyzing the Power of People for Sustainable IPC Improvement in Health Facilities”.
Photo title: Participants are dancing at the opening session of the conference in Nigeria in December 2023.
Video title: Video impressions from the PALS conference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9dXJEGQOZU
In his opening statement, the Director General of NCDC, Dr Adetifa Idabayo, emphasized the potential of PALS to strengthen Infection Prevention and Control Programmes in health facilities nationwide and the importance of the commitment of governments and health facility leadership to fund IPC efforts.
At the conference, Change Agents presented their experiences and lessons learned from applying PALS and how it contributed to IPC improvement in their health facilities. Medical Directors and PALS trainers shared perspectives on how PALS could be leveraged in fields beyond IPC and for participatory leadership. Participants discussed how to ensure sustainability of IPC improvement efforts and the best way to integrate PALS into the Nigerian national IPC programme (“Turn Nigeria Orange”). In this regard, PALS helps preventing harm to patients and health care workers and contributes building a resilient health system that provides quality routine care.
The conference took place with the financial support of the German Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) through its Global Health Protection Programme.
Several news outlets covered the conference:
- https://von.gov.ng/ncdc-unveils-groundbreaking-approach-to-infection-prevention/
- https://radionigeria.gov.ng/2023/12/21/ncdc-takes-measure-to-reduce-healthcare-associated-infections/
- https://healthdigest.ng/hospital-associated-infections/
- https://sunshinefmng.com/ncdc-takes-drastic-measures-to-control-the-spread-of-diseases/
- https://sciencenigeria.com/ncdc-unveils-groundbreaking-ipc-strategy-pals-conference/
- https://twitter.com/IfedayoTiffy/status/1737451824964120970
- https://twitter.com/NCDCgov/status/1737442385678811145