Building Resilient Healthcare Systems In Africa With A Focus On Outbreaks And Epidemics
- Africa is facing an increase in outbreaks and epidemics, but its healthcare systems are already severely challenged.
- As the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic highlighted, protection against such health threats is critical to containing and saving lives.
- Senegal has become the first African country to receive coverage for outbreak and pandemic risks, paving the way for building a resilient healthcare system on the continent.
In the past 20 years, Africa has experienced Public health emergency escalates due to emerging infectious diseases. Its healthcare system is often underfunded and under-equipped and is one of the weakest in the world, leaving the continent prone to outbreaks and epidemics. Other factors include extreme poverty and malnutrition, lack of clinics and immunization in rural and remote communities, and microbes adapted to climate change.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also warned that outbreaks caused by zoonotic pathogens are on the rise. added 63% Compared to 2001 to 2011, there are records from 2012 to 2022.
This threat, while scary, is not new. Africa has historically been affected by outbreaks and epidemics, from yellow fever, which was recorded as early as the 1600s to Dengue Fever 1779. Later, in 1817, cholera was imported from India, triggering a series of pandemics that, within a century, became “African diseases.’
These diseases, like many others, still exist. meningitisFor example, the disease is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, with a so-called “meningitis belt” stretching from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east. It covers 26 countries with an estimated total population of 300 million. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the region experiences major epidemics every 5 to 12 years, resulting in 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.
Marburg virus disease has also affected several African countries, with high mortality rates, Up to 88%. The most recent outbreaks occurred this year in Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania.
Moreover, Lassa fever is endemic in some West African countries, and their populations are high-risk groups. estimated at 59 million. In Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, 3 million people become ill and 67,000 die each year. Over the next 50 years, climate change and other environmental factors will cause Lassa fever to spread to central and eastern Africa, increasing the number of people at risk by as much as 600%according to a 2022 study from Scripps Research and the University of Brussels.
Ebola is a wake-up call
The 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa attracted world attention There have been no previous epidemics other than HIV/AIDSMasimba Tafenika, director of the United Nations Information Center in Pretoria, South Africa, pointed out. Tafenika said this exposed the shortcomings of Africa’s health care systems and the fact that the region already lacked basic equipment, facilities and medical personnel before the outbreak. The disease’s virulence overwhelmed medical systems, killing more than 11,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. World Bank estimates Economic impact on the three countries amounted to US$2.8 billion.
Slow and unpredictable funding hampered the rapid emergency response that helped contain and save lives at the start of the outbreak. “Had Ebola been detected two months earlier and the response started, the total number of deaths could have been reduced by 80%,” said Robert Kwame Agyarko, chief outbreak and epidemic advisor at the African Risk Capacity (ARC). %.”
In the same year, an outbreak occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 2,200 people. Although the response to this outbreak was much better, it still had significant social, political and economic consequences.
First in Africa
ARC believes that in order to successfully control the outbreak, a balance must be struck between finances and systems. The resulting Outbreak and Epidemic (O&E) product is a comprehensive risk analysis package; outbreak modeling based on simulated outbreaks; capacity building programs around epidemic preparedness; and risk transfer through contingency planning Catastrophe Bonds (CAT) To ensure faster and more effective response.
Designed to release payouts when an outbreak of a predetermined size is detected, governments can access funds for containment efforts and medical interventions without relying on traditional aid, which often comes too late. The benefits and protections are many, from reduced mortality and reduced outbreak response costs to mitigating secondary impacts on the national economy.
Due to previous outbreaks in Guinea and Uganda, ARC launched pilot products in these two countries in September 2017. During this period, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact in Africa and around the world, once again underscoring the urgency of protecting people, especially the most vulnerable, from unpredictable health threats.
The success of the ARC pilot will lead to the launch of final parametric insurance products for high-impact pandemic risks in ARC member states in 2022, a first on the continent. The causative agents of four diseases were selected; diseases that have historically caused high human toll and economic losses – Ebola, Marburg virus disease, Lassa fever and meningitis.
In December 2022, the first policy was issued to Senegal, allowing it to take advantage of this innovative financing tool and providing the government with $5 million in protection.
Senegal’s pioneering adoption is an important milestone for Africa and calls for other countries to follow suit. It is also the first step in building resilient healthcare systems on the continent to protect lives and mitigate the economic consequences of growing outbreaks and pandemics.
Source: World Economic Forum
