'Call 221': At Sudan's COVID-19 hotline a volunteer is doing all he can to save lives

Ibrahim Elzain Sagheroon, 35, is one of the scores of young people who have volunteered their time and talents to Sudan's COVID-19 Hotline.  In his own words, he discusses the critical role he hopes to play in helping to fight back against the spread of the disease in his country.

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Six months before the virus started in Sudan, I joined an initiative that, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), aims to provide tech solutions to improve the health system in Sudan. Because of this work we were aware of the current health system situation and mindful of the consequences if the virus spread in a country like Sudan. So I decided to take responsibility and dedicate all my efforts and experiences to help out during the pandemic. 

Holding the weekly meetings of the initiative at the FMoH instead of the initiative premises, especially after the announcement of the first COVID case in Sudan, was the right decision and it has positively impacted our work. 

I work with the management team. My work is mainly supervision and we receive about 4500-5000 calls on a daily basis. We started with 100 health workers who volunteered to work 24/7. Our role is to provide technical and logistics support to ensure the work is done efficiently. Sometimes we work for more than 72 hours in one go.  Some of our colleagues stay at work for almost a week without going home. We haven’t seen our families for over two months because we want to protect them as we have been in close contact with front liners.

I remember one of the calls we received was from a village outside Khartoum. The caller was afraid and anxious. We shared with him information about the disease and advice on how to prevent it. He then started to calm down. He wanted to share the safety precautions with his community members so he turned on the speaker and our colleague, who was on the call, started to explain.  He was very good in communicating the messages and the call continued for almost half an hour. When he finished, everyone was happy and they were praying for the volunteers and front liners and wishing them all the best. We were really touched by this call and we knew how important our role is.
 

Everyone was happy and they were praying for the volunteers and front liners and wishing them all the best. We were really touched by this call and we knew how important our role is.

Contributing to the Sudanese Revolution in December and the sit-in, where I used to help and support in the clinic, was one of the greatest experiences I have ever had in my life and I wanted to continue to contribute to my country and I think I am able to achieve that by working at the hotline.

UNICEF supports the COVID-19 response thanks to the generous contributions by the governments of Canada, Germany, Sweden and the United States (Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance) as well as contributions from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SHF).