Reaching a remote gold mining community in Suriname with COVID-19 testing
How integrating testing into an existing health programme can serve as a global model
Iramar do Socorro remembers March 2020 vividly. “It was frightening,” she says. “We stayed imprisoned, in our homes, we couldn’t leave. We were afraid.” That feeling of dread and that sense of fear as COVID-19 spread wasn’t unique to Socorro. It was global. But Socorro and her community were faced with a unique predicament. She lives in a remote gold mining community in Suriname.
This community is nestled in the jungle. Reaching it requires hours spent traveling by car, boat and all-terrain vehicles. Consequently, access to health services has been historically limited, with a lack of government clinics.
The gold mining industry is one of Suriname’s driving economic forces and therefore the spread of COVID-19 in regions like these threatened not only the health of community members, but also the country’s economy. An effective response was paramount. “Epidemics, they occur and they don’t wait. It’s important to be able to act in a very short time," says Dr. Stephen Vreden, who is the Chair of the Foundation for the Advancement of Scientific Research in Suriname.
As COVID-19 began to spread, it became clear that this mobile mining community, which consists largely of migrant gold miners from Brazil, lacked the necessary testing resources to track and control the spread of the disease.
“When the COVID-19 pandemic became a fact in Suriname, the Ministry of Health had a proper response for the stable populations, but they didn’t have access to these mobile migrant communities,”
For the miners and their families to get tested, they initially would have needed to have traveled hours to reach a clinic, which was impractical and unrealistic.
So, a new initiative was launched by the Suriname Ministry of Health and the Foundation for the Advancement of Scientific Research.
UNICEF/UN0779265/Henny/Slingshot
“We thought that if you can provide diagnosis and treatment for malaria, maybe you can do it for other things as well,” says Stephen Vreden.
“We thought that if you can provide diagnosis and treatment for malaria, maybe you can do it for other things as well,” says Stephen Vreden.
UNICEF/UN0779265/Henny/Slingshot
Community health workers were trained to administer rapid COVID-19 diagnostic tests and that meant that the miners didn’t have time to wait days before they got their results back. The testing was provided to community members regardless of their legal status in Suriname.
The community health workers spearheading this effort have also been trained to address community hesitancy around COVID-19 testing, as some community members were initially reluctant to get tested. That training enabled them to underscore the importance of testing as a pandemic mitigation measure. These health workers come from the communities themselves and that helps when it comes to building trust. Over time, behavior has changed and many of the miners are now more proactive about getting tested when they’re experiencing flu like symptoms.
UNICEF/UN0779204/Henny/Slingshot
“When the rapid test arrived it was much simpler for us to reach people who were sick. We could diagnose exactly how many people had the disease,” remembers Creuza Lopes Camargo, one of the health workers who has been leading this effort. “People here love our work. They highly value our work.”
“When the rapid test arrived it was much simpler for us to reach people who were sick. We could diagnose exactly how many people had the disease,” remembers Creuza Lopes Camargo, one of the health workers who has been leading this effort. “People here love our work. They highly value our work.”
UNICEF/UN0779204/Henny/Slingshot
For Dr. Hiwat and her colleagues at Suriname’s Ministry of Health, this work is serving as an example for the future.
“The standard approach does not always work for these special populations. In this context you have to be able to be flexible and to have a really targeted approach that reaches these communities in an effective way.”
This initiative demonstrates the effectiveness of integrating COVID-19 testing into an existing testing programme, such as the malaria prevention efforts in Suriname. In the future, this strategy can be replicated for other diseases in other contexts. That’s paramount as COVID-19 testing rates continue to decline globally, yet the issue of ensuring people have easy access to testing remains a pressing challenge. Testing is essential, as it allows countries to identify infections and put measures in place to limit transmission. That in turn has a profound effect on limiting lockdowns, which as we know often results in devastating social and economic efforts.
Through the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, UNICEF worked with partners to bring COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments to everyone. UNICEF has been working with partners to spearhead advocacy efforts targeted at raising awareness of the importance of testing and increasing rates globally. UNICEF and its partners continue to explore ways to integrate testing into already existing health systems.
