Presented by The Conversation Africa
What do four failed rainy seasons in the Horn of Africa mean? According to the World Health Organization, it’s an unprecedented health emergency.
For the first time in the history of WHO’s emergencies program and this grading system, a drought and food insecurity crisis have been declared a grade-three health emergency — the agency’s highest crisis ranking. The emergency extends across Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda, a region that’s experiencing its worst drought in 40 years.
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• The new grade-three classification means that emergency funding will be allocated from WHO internal contingency resources to jump-start a response and meet immediate needs in affected countries. The organization expects that further funds will need to be raised to respond to the crisis, and it is now putting together a strategic response plan.
• “The health risks and needs of the population are increasing, while at the same time people are facing many barriers to accessing health services as their resources dwindle and they are forced to leave their homes in search for food, water and pasture,” a WHO spokesperson tells our colleague Sara Jerving, predicting that without a scaled-up humanitarian response, “We can expect many people to die.”
• During the region’s previous drought in 2017, humanitarian groups were able to effectively respond and protect millions of people from famine. The current UNOCHA humanitarian response plan appeal for $1.5 billion for Somalia remains just 28% funded, whereas in June 2017 the OCHA response received $153 million more.
• But this time, the war in Ukraine has upended the global food system. Already, the World Food Programme has warned that 330,000 children in Somalia could die of malnutrition and there is a concrete risk of a fifth failed rainy season in October, which has never before been recorded.
Read: Drought reaches top WHO health emergency status for the first time
ICYMI: Children bear brunt of health crisis in Horn of Africa drought
Time to regroup
“It's very important to get the next malaria vaccine studied in populations in high-endemic regions, particularly in Africa, as soon as possible.”
— Trevor Mundel, president of global health, Bill & Melinda Gates FoundationSpeaking ahead of the Kigali Summit on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases, Mundel says anti-malaria efforts must regain focus in the wake of the upheaval caused by COVID-19. Last year, WHO recommended the first vaccine for malaria — but while Mundel calls the inoculation a “wonderful tool,” he points out that with only 36% effectiveness recorded over four years, it’s not going to solve the problem on its own.
Gates Foundation: Time to regroup on malaria and NTDs
Have you heard?
Bill Gates will join us at Devex World on July 12 for an exclusive interview about progress on eliminating pandemic threats to humanity and the plan going forward. He’ll touch on themes from his most recent book, “How To Prevent the Next Pandemic,” including what should be done to improve health systems — such as creating a global epidemic response and mobilization team — and the innovations needed across diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines to make disastrous pandemics a thing of the past.
Get your Devex World ticket today. Pro subscribers get a special discount to join us in person in Washington or online anywhere to hear from Gates about what you and your organization can do.
Day zero
A key step to solving vaccine inequity is to help lower-income countries with the financing to place advance orders, a pair of economists, Ruchir Agarwal from the International Monetary Fund and Tristan Reed from the World Bank, suggests in their new research. They propose establishing a new advance commitment mechanism with access to a credit line on “day zero” — defined as the day that WHO declares a pandemic — which would allow lower-income countries to get in line to buy vaccines earlier.
Read: How to get vaccines to poorer countries quicker in the next pandemic (Pro)
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Best and worst
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative has come out with the latest annual update to its Rights Tracker, which includes health. Here’s what it found:
• Despite having the lowest per capita income of any country measured by the World Bank, Burundi garnered a perfect score of 100% for fulfilling people’s right to health. That doesn’t mean everyone in the country has complete health rights, but rather that the country is doing its best with its limited resources.
• Government expenditure on health isn’t always a good predictor of a country’s ability to fulfill this right. For example: Even with a high per capita income of $59,920, and having one of the highest domestic health spending per capita rates — $5,552 as per World Bank data — the U.S. scored only 82.1% in the tracker.
Read: The best and worst countries for ensuring the right to health
One big number
12.4 million
—That’s the estimated number of children in lower-income countries who have not received a single dose of basic vaccinations, such as those for polio and measles.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance aims to reach these children following this week’s launch of its Zero-Dose Immunization Programme, initially focusing on those living in displaced communities and other uncertain situations. Gavi is partnering with the International Rescue Committee and World Vision to lead the program’s implementation in 11 countries across the Horn of Africa and the Sahel region where an estimated 4 million zero-dose children live.
What we’re reading
From 2006 to 2016, just 0.3% of global development assistance for health went to mental health, a new report says. [WHO]
This year, the G-20 aims to raise $1.5 billion for a proposed pandemic preparedness fund. [Reuters]
Afghanistan is in the midst of a massive measles outbreak caused by low vaccination coverage and economic hardship. [The New Humanitarian]
Abortion-rights groups are navigating Poland’s restrictive laws as they receive an increase in requests for abortion pills and services among female refugees from Ukraine. [TIME]
About the authors
Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo
Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.
Amruta Byatnalamrutabyatnal
Amruta Byatnal is a Senior Editor at Devex where she edits coverage on global development, humanitarian crises and international aid. She writes Devex CheckUp, a weekly newsletter on the latest developments in global health. Previously, she worked for News Deeply in the United States, and The Hindu in India. She is a graduate of Cornell University where she studied international development. She is currently based in New Delhi.
