Africa is Rolling Out a New Plan for Pandemic Preparedness and Health Emergencies

In late August, health ministers from across Africa held a meeting in Togo in which they adopted a common strategy to confront health emergencies.

The so called "Regional Strategy for Health Security and Emergencies" commits African countries to concrete steps to strengthen disease surveillance, response and preparedness.

There are over 100 health emergencies in Africa each year — including outbreaks of infectious and deadly diseases like Yellow Fever, meningitis, and ebola. And it is sometimes the case that diseases endemic only in parts of Africa, like MonkeyPox, can spread globally precisely because of limited local capacity to contain an outbreak. This new strategy seeks to change that dynamic.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Abdou Salam Gueye, WHO Regional Emergency Director for Africa, to discuss this new African health security plan and Africa's role in global pandemic preparedness and response.

We kick off by discussing what COVID revealed about African health systems' ability …