Even in the short window of time since our last report, the pressure placed by public health emergencies (PHE) on the African region has increased substantially. The number of events WHO AFRO is monitoring at the end of Q2 represents a 20% increase from the January figure1. Conflict and climate-driven humanitarian crises, combined with new and recurrent outbreaks, are creating an increasingly complex PHE profile for the region. Across Member States, authorities are tackling Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), monkey pox, yellow fever, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), alongside situations of protracted drought and conflict. The WHO AFRO has been mobilising to respond. We have developed multi-level incident management systems (IMS) and strategic response plans, deployed over 200 experts to the field, and procured essential equipment and resources. We’re proud to be supporting Member States to limit escalating casualties, hospitalisations, and health-system disruption across the region.
While we backstop countries to curb outbreaks and meet the immediate health needs of people living through crises, the implementation of our flagship programmes is simultaneously working to address the systemic inadequacies in the health emergency architecture in our region.
These three programmes are central to our all-hazards, longer-view, capacity-building endeavour. The three programmes contribute towards building the capacity of Member States to adequately prepare for, detect, and respond to public health emergencies:
PROSE (Promoting Resilience of Systems for Emergencies)
TASS (Transforming African Surveillance Systems)
AVoHC-SURGE (African Volunteers Health CorpsStrengthening and Utilising Response Groups for Emergencies)
In Q2, all programmes have made notable progress towards this goal. The PROSE programme has been articulating and amplifying the needs of Member States as the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) develops future pandemic governance frameworks, and the TASS programme has been advocating innovative solutions to enhance Member States’ implementation of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) systems.