Strengthening and utilizing response groups for emergencies flagship: a narrative review of the roll out process and lessons from the first year of implementation.

The World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO/AFRO) faces members who encounter annual disease epidemics and natural disasters that necessitate immediate deployment and a trained health workforce to respond. The gaps in this regard, further exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, led to conceptualizing the Strengthening and Utilizing Response Group for Emergencies (SURGE) flagship in 2021. This study aimed to present the experience of the WHO/AFRO in the stepwise roll-out process and the outcome, as well as to elucidate the lessons learned across the pilot countries throughout the first year of implementation. The details of the roll-out process and outcome were obtained through information and data extraction from planning and operational documents, while further anonymized feedback on various thematic areas was received from stakeholders through key informant interviews with 60 core actors using open-ended questionnaires. In total, 15 out of the 47 countries in WHO/AFRO are currently implementing the initiative, with a total of 1,278 trained and validated African Volunteers Health Corps-Strengthening and Utilizing Response Groups for Emergencies (AVoHC-SURGE) members in the first year. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has the highest number (214) of trained AVoHC-SURGE members. The high level of advocacy, the multi-sectoral-disciplinary approach in the selection process, the adoption of the one-health approach, and the uniqueness of the training methodology are among the best practices applauded by the respondents. At the same time, financial constraints were the most reported challenge, with ongoing strategies to resolve them as required. Six countries, namely Botswana, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Togo, have started benefiting from their trained AVoHC-SURGE members locally, while responders from Botswana and Rwanda were deployed internationally to curtail the recent outbreaks of cholera in Malawi and Kenya.

Framework for Risk Communication and Community Engagement to Improve Vaccine Uptake for COVID-19 and other Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC).

A framework for guiding risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) during COVID-19 vaccination roll-out is worthwhile in order to guide interventions aimed at improving vaccine uptake. This requires setting up standardised early-warning indicators to predict or detect low uptake; coordination of response activities by all partners, real-time information exchange, innovativeness in designing strategies to deal with arising and anticipated challenges; flexibility to adapt quickly to changing demands and evolving circumstances; and documentation of progress and lessons learnt.

Achieving SDGs and addressing health emergencies in Africa: strengthening health promotion.

In 1986, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened the first Global Conference on Health Promotion held in Ottawa, Canada. This conference yielded the Ottawa Charter which defined health promotion as the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. A series of conferences followed and in 2005, WHO convened the Sixth Global Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, which yielded the Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion. This Charter for the first time expanded the role of health promotion to include addressing social determinants of health. Ministers of Health from 47 countries of the WHO Regional Office for Africa in 2012 endorsed the Health Promotion: Strategy for the African Region. This Strategy highlighted eight priority interventions required to address health risk factors and their determinants. In 2011, the Rio Political Declaration on Addressing Social Determinants of Health was adopted by Health Ministers and civil society groups to address inequalities and inequities within and between populations. The main action areas were good governance to tackle the root causes of health inequities; promoting participation and ownership; community leadership for action on social determinants; global action on social determinants to align priorities and stakeholders; and monitoring progress on implementation of policies and strategies. Health promotion has been prominent as part of disease outbreak response, including for Ebola and COVID-19. It has been an integral part of improving maternal and child health mortality and morbidity as well as TB, HIV/AIDS and malaria; and lately reducing the impact of noncommunicable diseases, namely diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer. While challenges continue in strengthening health promotion, there have been concerted efforts to place health promotion on the development agenda in countries through Health in All Policies (HiAP), capacity strengthening, monitoring and evaluation, and innovative financing policy options using dedicated tax from tobacco and alcohol, and road use.