Health for All (Saúde Para Todos)

Duration: January 2017 – July 2023
Total Funding: $79 million

OVERVIEW

Built on a long partnership between the United States Government (USG) and Government of the Republic of Angola (GRA), the USAID Health for All (HFA) project provides targeted and evidence-based interventions in malaria, family planning (FP), reproductive health (RH), and most recently COVID-19. HFA’s overarching goal is to improve access to quality health care and promote behavior change, by strengthening local capacity to deliver integrated services across different levels of the health system.

The HFA project works with the GRA Ministry of Health’s National Directorate of Public Health (DNSP), the National Malaria Control Program (PNCM), the Primary Healthcare Department (PHCD), and the Expanded Program on Immunization (PAV), to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of GRA’s resources as it addresses the health needs of Angola’s population, especially the most vulnerable in hard-to-reach communities.

PROGRAMS AND GEOGRAPHIC FOCUS AREAS:                                      

ACTIVITIES

Malaria:

• Train health workers to effectively diagnose and treat malaria cases
• Strengthening the quality of diagnosis and treatment of malaria, including the capacity to complete malaria laboratory diagnosis
• Training health workers to effectively diagnose and treat malaria cases, and technicians in intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy and on case management during pregnancy
• Procure and implementation of a mass distribution campaign of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) to PMI’s six focus provinces
• Supporting the routine distribution of ITNs in PMI’s six focus provinces and assisting the GoA implementing its behavior change communication activities towards for ITNs correct use and care
• Roll out of integrated case management activities at the community level through the Community Development and Health Workers (ADECOS) program, in four PMI focus provinces
• Reinforcing institutional capacity of the National Malaria Control Program
• Support deployment of Angola’s District Health Information System (DHIS2) platform for malaria surveillance and reporting

Family Planning and Reproductive Health (RH): 

• Support FP/RH counseling and services by strengthening GRA providers’ capacity
• Generate demand for voluntary FP and RH services through improved health messages and behavior change communication
• Improve youth friendly FP and RH services
• Support the introduction of FP module into the Provincial Nursing School curriculum

COVID-19:  

• Improve acceptance and trust to the vaccines via a national multimedia social behavior change (SBC) campaign
• Support the DNSP to increase second dose uptake in Luanda replicating successful community mobilization campaign and adapt consistent social behavior change communication messages
• Increase and expand the number of existing vaccination teams from 40 to 60 based on eligible population size and daily vaccine uptake
• Engage with civil society organizations and faith-based organizations representing priority vaccination groups to increase vaccine uptake

SELECTED RESULTS IN MALARIA:

• The project is credited with contributing to a 50% decrease in malaria deaths nationwide between 2016 and 2019
• A decrease on malaria deaths of 10% in six PMI focus provinces (despite the increased by 18% in the rest of the country in 2021)
• Twelve million Angolans covered by a country-wide mass campaign house-to-house distribution of over 6.6 million insecticide-treated nets (ITNs)
• Approximately one million Angolans were reached through a digital malaria SBC and prevention campaign
• Over 8,376 health workers gained competency in malaria case management, malaria laboratory diagnosis, and malaria in pregnancy.
• Implementation of post-training formative supervision, shown to improve the quality of malaria diagnosis and treatment
• Over 42.000 people were tested, including 27,000 treated through PMI support at community level, from 2018 to 2021
• Supported the Ministry of Health in its transition from paper-based reporting of health data to digital health information systems (DHIS2 and OpenLMIS)

SELECTED RESULTS IN FAMILY PLANNING:

• 90 health units in four provinces are offering Family Planning/Reproductive Health (FP/RH) counseling and services
• 135 Youth Activists trained in FP/RH counseling and are providing up-to-date counseling information to their peers at 90 health units in four provinces. To date over 300,000 people, including adolescents, have received counseling services
• Over 1.2 million people were reached with FP SBC change interventions via social media campaigns
• 111 professors from technical nursing schools were certified on Family Planning Developed and introduced 3 new FP courses on Kassai e-learning platform

SELECTED RESULTS IN COVID-19:

• 90 health units in four provinces are offering Family Planning/Reproductive Health (FP/RH) counseling and services
• Assist DNSP in vaccinating two million eligible people in Cuanza Norte, Huambo, Luanda, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Malanje, Uige, and Zaire provinces
• Support the administration of three million vaccines, achieving 70 percent coverage of the target groups in the eight focus provinces
• Reach specific target population groups through mass communication campaigns with SBC interventions in collaboration with DNSP
•  Increase acceptance of the vaccine among targeted population groups, addressing vaccine misinformation and increasing coverage with the second and booster doses