Switzerland - IOM and the United States' Centers Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have organized a two-week technical workshop and Population Mobility Mapping (PMM) field exercise in Freetown and Port Loko, Sierra Leone.

IOM launched a five-year program with funding from CDC in late 2015 in support of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) to better prevent, detect and respond to disease outbreaks and other public health threats, through the operationalization of IOM’s Health, Border and Mobility Management (HBMM) framework. 

As a central part of the project, IOM is currently conducting sub-regional PMM exercises, identifying patterns of mobility, areas of high congregation of travellers, health response capacity, training and infrastructure needs to inform governments on resource allocation needs in vulnerable areas at higher risk of infectious disease spread, as a direct result of human mobility. This supports the prioritization of public health interventions for emergency preparedness and response purposes in the sub-region.

The workshop in Sierra Leone was an opportunity for the IOM GHSA missions from eight West African missions (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Mauritania), the IOM Regional Office in Dakar and IOM HQ to meet with CDC technical advisors and senior management to discuss and align key methodologies and tools.

The workshop was held at a crucial time, as IOM anticipates a geographical expansion for its HBMM programme, from six countries to nine, before the end of 2016.

As a part of the PMM field exercise, IOM and CDC technical staff reviewed the Mobility Mapping Tool to reach a consensus on its scope and approach, resulting in the re-modelling of the tool.

This revised tool was subsequently presented to stakeholders at a training session organized by IOM and presided over by the District Medical Officer of Port Loko District, which recorded the second highest rate of Ebola (EVD) infection nationwide.

In collaboration with CDC, the new tool is tested by IOM at Kafu Bullom and Lokomasama Chiefdoms, Port Loko, while incorporating two groups of key informants (motorbike taxi operators, market traders, and youth representatives) selected from the two Chiefdoms.

For further information please contact Dr. Teresa Zakaria at IOM HQ in Geneva, Tel. +41227179545, Email: tzakaria@iom.int