Only 12 African countries have public health emergency operation centers that function ideally and consistently — but the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention would like that to change, said Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, acting director of Africa CDC, during the African Union’s midyear coordination meetings in Zambia on Saturday.
The agency wants every nation on the continent to have at least one well-functioning center, with hopes that by 2026 at least 90% of African countries achieve this target, and that it will create a network of institutions that will increase the continent’s overall capacity to respond.
“Public Health Emergency Operations Centers serve as a hub for better coordination, preparation, response, and recovery for public health emergencies,” Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema said during the meeting, calling it the “Lusaka Call to Action.”
These national centers will manage health incidents by serving as central sources of information, coordinating responses, ensuring resources are allocated, informing the public quickly, creating a chain of command for response, and helping countries implement the International Health Regulations, Ouma said. He added that these centers need to have enough trained professionals working at them, with the right infrastructure and equipment, as well as strong data collection systems.
In order to realize this vision, countries need to fast-track in-country legislation and allocate local resources to these centers, Hichilema said.
Those first few days at the onset of a health outbreak are critical, Ouma said, and if a country does the right things it can reduce the chances it will evolve into a larger, potentially global, crisis.
During the West Africa Ebola outbreak between 2014 and 2016, the countries involved had not invested in early warning systems, and there wasn’t the capacity to monitor the outbreak, including reports at the community level, which led to improper data analysis and slow response, Ouma said. Over 11,000 people died during the crisis.
In the wake of these failures, the Africa CDC was created in order to improve outbreak response across the continent.
“The birth of Africa CDC has resulted in better coordinated and holistic public health measures against COVID-19,” Hichilema said, but there is still work needed on strengthening emergency response.
"Ebola taught us some very painful lessons," Ouma said. "COVID is teaching us even more painful lessons, and we are putting all these lessons into use. That is why we believe strongly that implementing public health emergency operation centers effectively, at the country level, is going to make the big difference."
According to Africa CDC, 34 countries have dedicated facilities for these centers, 17 countries have legal authorities backing them, 27 countries have the minimum staff required, and 24 have the operations of these centers written in their budget, but only a dozen countries have scored above 80% on the metric that the AU is using to define a high functionality.
The need for these centers grows as the continent experiences an uptick in outbreaks, Ouma said.
"In recent times, [outbreaks] have become more regular and they have been affecting more countries than we were seeing before. The threats are real and our response also needs to be real,” he said.