WHO, AfCDC, engage stakeholders on emergency preparedness

In efforts to strengthen national capacities for an effective response to health emergencies, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa, in collaboration with the Africa Center for Disease Control (AfCDC) has conducted a scoping mission in Ghana to engage stakeholders on the rollout of flagship initiatives for health security.

The engagement aimed at working with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to identify areas in which additional capacity can be developed to articulate a shared vision for health security.

Prof Francis Kasolo, WHO country representative to Ghana said, "We all know how Ghana responded to the COVID-19 and other outbreaks but we want Ghana to be a modern country in terms of health emergencies and so the scoping mission is just there to be able to assist the look at areas we need Ghana to develop further beyond the current situation and also to ensure that Ghana has that capacity to support other countries within the Africa continent."

He emphasized that the meeting will focus on areas such as developing a strong and resilience health system that can withstand shocks, detect new pandemics, and build a strong human resource workforce that can be deployed to investigate and respond within 48 hours and same workforce will become part of African continent-wide workforce that can be deployed anywhere in Africa to respond to outbreaks and lastly addressing areas of logistics.

According to Prof Francis Kasolo, Ghana has done well in terms of disaster management but there is more work to be done.

He added that responding emergency is not about knowledge but looking at the country's context by understanding the basic culture of the people in order to design programs responding to those cultures as well as responding to emergencies.

Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Patrick Kuma Aboagye in his remarks, commended WHO and AfCDC, adding that this will enable the health system to be more resilient.