Following his appointment as the new Gambia Government Coordinator for COVID-19 response, Mr. Yaya Duwa Sanyang, on Monday, 20th July 2020, met his core team of the National COVID-19 Response Coordination Secretariat and other pillar heads in the humanitarian response at the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) in Kanifing to familiarize himself with the response strategies and plans.
Outlining the relevance of a coherent response mechanism, Mr. Sanyang affirms that “the topmost priority pillar must be coordination of resource inputs and disease surveillance. We will need to move in one direction and the response should be evidence led.”
He emphasizes the need to “have the public on our side. This would require intensified and robust risk communication strategies that are culturally appropriate. Messages should be simple, clear and easily understood. This is what provides the population with the information and skills to take protective actions for themselves. It dispels misinformation. Let’s put the truth in the public space, counter the falsehood and get Gambians of all cadres on the right side.”
Mr. Sanyang is an established global health professional with extensive field experience in health system management, operations and logistics for health emergencies in The Gambia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi, Sudan and Mozambique.
Prior to going international, Coordinator Sanyang left an indelible mark on The Gambian health care delivery system by serving as Project Director for a 35-million US Dollar World Bank health and population project for 8 years, National Officer WHO Gambia and Principal Health Planner at the Ministry of Health in charge of budgeting and donor coordination.