Operational cholera toolkit

Since its creation in 1979, ACF has responded to cholera epidemics by involving its WASH department, and more sporadically, its Health & Nutrition department.

Increasingly, ACF national offices are receiving urgent invitations to participate in local outbreak control actions in their work areas, coming from health authorities and partners (donors, international and national NGOs). Due to the importance of taking part on these efforts, a number of naional offices have been recently involved on WASH and medical activities outbreak responses. With the recent re-engagement in health, there is a need to describe and combine both activities and to encourage multidisciplinary working. Moreover, ACF increasingly supports the response in the community by implementing epi-driven, geo-targeted and evidence-based interventions which requires adapted operational guidelines. 

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of the ACF cholera operational toolkit is to provide Standard Operating Procedures for ACF field teams to prevent, prepare for and respond to cholera outbreaks, combining both Health and WASH activities and including a component on case management strategy. 

Specific objectives are:

1. To establish standards for cholera preparedness and response activities.
2. To describe the steps for a timely and effective response to cholera outbreaks.
3. To outline roles and responsibilities of program and logistic teams and also link with Emergency Unit process.

METHODOLOGY

1. In 2019 an online survey enabled Action Against Hunger to collect ACF end-users’ expectations in terms of contents and structure for a toolkit.
2. The operational toolkit was developed in 2019, to based on available resources including toolkits, roadmap, reports, web-platforms and other documentation and materials from the Global Task Force for Cholera Control (GTFCC), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), UNICEF, World Health Organization (WHO), and Action against Hunger, as well as relevant scientific articles and countries information.
3. In 2020 each factsheet was reviewed by experts from relevant departments at Action against Hunger as well as external experts.
4. The toolkit development follows an incremental and interactive process: it is a living tool that is aimed to being regularly updated and enhanced thanks to the feedback from end-users.

For your comments and suggestions, please contact cantoine@actioncontrelafaim.org.

CONTENT

The ACF Cholera operational toolkit is subdivided in five distinct modules:

1. Coordination
2.  Cholera case management
3.  Cholera response in the community
4.  Assessment, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
5. Support functions (logistics, human resources, communication)

Each module includes a panel of operational factsheets that can be either strategic briefs or technical briefs (activities and tools). They include materials for decision-making process, key actions for case management and response in the community, and protocols. They summarize information on positioning, objectives, responsibilities, and cross-sectoral collaboration.

The information relates to the different phases of a cholera outbreak (before/during/after), and therefore fits into cholera preparedness and response.