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.

SARS-CoV-2 antibody seroprevalence in Togo: a national cross-sectional household survey, May-June, 2021.

BACKGROUND: The extent of SARS-CoV-2 circulation in African countries is still unclear. Seroprevalence studies are a common approach to epidemiological surveillance, allowing estimation of the proportion of people who have had contact with the virus. We aimed at estimating the seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and associated factors in Togo at the national level in 2021 according to age groups, gender, and place of residence (rural or urban). METHODS: From 15 May to 31 June 2021, we conducted a nationally representative cross-sectional serological survey in 12 health districts (two districts per health region) in the > 5 years old population in Togo. The Wantai SARS-CoV-2 total antibody assay S protein receptor-binding domain-based ELISA (Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Co.; Beijing, China) was used to determine the presence of SARS-CoV-2 total antibodies in plasma. Crude and weighted seroprevalences (weighted by age, sex and place of residence) were calculated and then weighted seroprevalences were adjusted according to sensitivity and specificity of the ELISA test. Finally, logistic regression models were performed in order to describe factors associated. RESULTS: Of the 7593 participants, the overall weighted and adjusted seroprevalence of total anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 65.5% (CI95%: 18.9-21.1). Urban dwellers, young adults (30-49 years) and vaccinated individuals were significantly more likely to be seropositive. CONCLUSION: The high seroprevalence we observed is consistent with observations across West Africa. Quantification of the level of immunity in the population is needed to know how close we are to herd immunity. In the meantime, vaccination against the COVID-19 remains necessary.