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Experts brainstorm on how to reduce public health epidemics in Africa

Health experts from 24 African Anglophone countries have gathered in Accra to build synergies on disease surveillance and effective response measures to reduce public health epidemics in the region.

The Regional Training-of-Trainers on Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) is a lead up to the implementation of the 3rd edition of IDSR technical guidelines for member countries, expected to be rolled out next year, to strengthen national public health surveillance and response systems at all levels.

The five-day training is being held by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH).

In a speech read on his behalf, the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, cited a 2019 WHO evaluation of disease trends on the region which indicates that emerging infectious diseases were on the rise.

“This is largely attributed to the growth of cross-border migration, increasing human population, growth of informal settlements, climate change and changes in the way humans and wild animals interact, among others.”

Admitting that Ghana’s health response system was quite agile having been able to develop an electronic health platform for disease surveillance and, in recent times, picked up vaccine derived polio through routine reporting systems, the minister did not rule out the need to build more capacity.

“There are many effective tools available to prevent early detection and respond to all these public health emergencies, however, the challenge is to build the capacity to extend such interventions country-wide in all countries in the African region,” he noted.

Mr Agyeman-Manu, to this end, believed the IDSR strategy aimed at lessening the impact of public health outbreaks and improve health status of people living on the continent would help accelerate efforts at achieving universal health coverage (UHC).

The minister thus charged participants to impact knowledge acquired at the workshop to health and non-health staff in their respective countries to “effectively respond to all public health events that may occur in the region.”

Country Representative of the WHO, Dr Neema Kimambo, insisted that for the IDSR to be implemented successfully, it required “a workforce that is well-trained with the necessary skills to early detect and timely respond to public health emergencies.”

Ghana, she mentioned, was one of two pilot countries selected to make input into the 3rd edition ISDR strategy and subsequently the WHO had offered to support the country to adapt the technical guidelines for effective roll-out come 2020.

On his part, Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Anthony Ofosu, hoped the workshop will go a long way to reduce morbidity and mortality resulting from recurrent episodes of public health emergencies like ebola, cholera, measles and yellow fever outbreaks, among other diseases, that had bedeviled the continent.

He, however, called for investment in interventions such as logistics, trained personnel in all health facilities across the country and financial support to curb public health emergencies.

BY ABIGAIL ANNOH

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