Africa needs N2.8tr to boost preparedness for next pandemic, says WHO

• Ministers adopt new strategy to transform health security
• WHO reports more than 41,000 cases of monkeypox globally as infections fall

World Health Organisation (WHO) and African health ministers, yesterday, said the continent needs up to $4 billion (N2.8 trillion) yearly from international and domestic sources to fully fund core health security capacities in Africa and better prepare for the next pandemic.

Also, spurred by the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on fragile health systems, the health ministers, during the 72nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa in Lomé, Togo, this week, endorsed a new eight-year strategy to transform health security and emergency response in the region.

WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti; Minister of Health, Public Hygiene, and Universal Access to Care, Togo, Prof. Moustafa Mijiyawa; and Minister of Health, Uganda, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, spoke yesterday at a press conference on the sidelines of the event.

The WHO African Region (WHOAFRO), in a statement, said the new strategy includes strengthening mechanisms for partnerships and multi-sectoral collaboration, ensuring sustained and predictable investment and repurposing resources from polio eradication and COVID-19 to support strategic investments in systems and tools for public health emergencies.

The Regional Strategy for Health Security and Emergencies (2022 to 2030) aims to reduce the health and socioeconomic impacts of public health emergencies.

The WHO said, globally, the African region reports the heaviest burden of public health emergencies, with more than 100 such events occurring yearly. It said prior to the emergence of COVID-19, the top causes of epidemics in the region were cholera, measles, yellow fever, meningococcal meningitis, influenza and viral haemorrhagic fevers, most of which are preventable by strengthening routine immunisation.

However, the WHO said COVID-19 underscored the need to improve surveillance, diagnostics, treatment and a range of health services. Its knock-on effects overwhelmed health systems, interrupted essential health services and fuelled socio-economic disruption, threatening to undermine decades of hard-earned health and economic gains.

MEANWHILE, despite reporting 41,000 cases of monkeypox and 12 deaths in nearly 100 countries, the WHO, yesterday, said global monkeypox cases declined for the first time in a month, led by a drop in infections across Europe, even as concerns increased about a vaccine supply crunch.

The WHO said new cases around the world fell 21 per cent in the week ending August 21 from the previous week, as dwindling caseloads in Europe offset a continued rise in the Americas.

It noted that 16 countries have not reported new infections for more than three weeks, the maximum incubation period for the disease.

Director General, WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at an online briefing on Thursday: “There are signs the outbreak is slowing in Europe, where a combination of effective public health measures, behaviour change and vaccination are helping to prevent transmission.

“However, in Latin America in particular, insufficient awareness or public health measures are combining with a lack of access to vaccines to fan the flames of the outbreak.”

Still, more than a dozen countries saw a rise in weekly case numbers with the highest increase reported in the United States. Over 34 per cent of the current global case count is in the United States. The WHO said infections in the Americas region showed “a continuing steep rise” in the previous week.