USAID Ghana Mission Director Gets Indoor Residual Spraying 101

This week’s Fist Bump goes to the PMI VectorLink Ghana team who in the middle of their indoor residual spraying campaign, received a high-profile visit from the USAID/PMI team. USAID Mission Director, Kimberly Rosen along with PMI staff joined the VL Ghana team for a two-day visit, which took place on March 15 and 16. This was the mission director’s introduction to IRS and the science behind the intervention.

The USAID/PMI team first saw VL Ghana’s entomological activities. Following a briefing on IRS operations by acting COP Ernest Fletcher and Operations Manager Abdulai Abdul-Karim, the USAID/PMI team visited the project insectary to observe the breeding stages of both the susceptible, Kisumu and resistant Tissale strains of female Anopheles mosquitoes used to conduct various spray quality tests and check for the effectiveness of the insecticides used for IRS. At the lab, the team saw a demonstration of the processes involved in identifying mosquitoes physically and testing for their ability to infect people with malaria parasites. The Mission Director tried her hands at some of the processes such as dissecting the mosquito and grinding it in preparation to run the test to find out if it was infected!

The following day at the operations site in Kumbungu sub-district, the USAID/PMI team participated in morning mobilization, wishing the spray team a great day before they set off. The team inspected the stores and insecticide rooms and were then taken through the team’s performance throughout the campaign using the performance tracker. The spray team had sprayed 80% of the structures found so far, and they would conduct a revisit to spray the rest. The USAID/PMI team was also introduced to the newly designed Community Performance Tracker, a tool that helps in the spray team’s planning of community visits based on structures yet to be sprayed.

The USAID/PMI team then observed spraying in Nwodua, a community under the Kumbungu site where spraying was ongoing. They observed a female spray operator preparing to spray a household and interacted with some community health nurses who were supporting spraying in the community. The team continued to the bank of the White Volta River and were briefed on how spray teams cross over to spray hard-to-reach communities living across the river.

Excellent job providing a comprehensive overview of IRS for the Mission Director, VL Ghana. Best of Luck on the rest of the campaign!!