• Mo Ibrahim foundation said any pandemic requires by nature general coordination of efforts across national and regional borders.
• The foundation said there is an urgent need to act on the lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak in 2015 and address the specific weaknesses of Africa’s health structures.
Image: COURTESY
The Mo Ibrahim Foundation has appealed to the African States to use lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
The foundation in a statement on Tuesday said it has analysed Africa’s readiness and capacity to manage the pandemic and established there needs to be a sound and coordinated governance across the continent.
It said any pandemic requires by nature general coordination of efforts across national and regional borders, and with multilateral actors and partners, even more so in a globalised world.
"There is an urgent need to act on the lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak in 2015 and address the specific weaknesses of Africa’s health structures in improving health systems, citizen access to them and more generally strengthen data and statistical capacity,” the foundation said.
According to the foundation, only 10 African countries provide free and universal health care to their citizens, while healthcare in 22 countries is neither free nor universal.
“Governments need to make swift improvements in handling and improving access to basic health services,” read part of a statement.
The foundation said data from the Africa Centre for Disease Control indicates that 43 African countries can test for Covid-19.
“However, countries are less prepared for the effective point of entry screening and monitoring of travelers and treatment of cases. Efforts to strengthen and enhance preparedness could help to save lives,” the statement read.
“Based on data and indices collated from the IIAG and a number of sources and organisations, the foundation has identified data coverage on health facilities and health outcomes in Africa is low. Only eight African countries have complete birth registration systems. This impacts the timely production of data, crucial during health emergencies.”
The foundation said quality statistics and the funding and autonomy of National Statistics Offices, are essential for all stages of evidence-based decision-making and policy formulation, namely in health care.
It said with the general weakness of health structures, from human resources to equipment and supply chains, working together is critical now more than ever.
“Many National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) have been created after health systems failed to respond to crises due to fragmented and insufficient responses. Finding ways to collaborate and work together to fight this challenge, protect lives and improve health capabilities is critical,” the statement read.
The foundation said though Africa has shown increasing improvement in Public Health Campaigns since 2008 with 20 countries seeing an improvement in score, 15 countries have also registered a decline.
It said all parties should thus contribute to national information and awareness-raising campaigns and help tackle misinformation and fake news.
“Infrastructure weakness can prevent personnel from reaching affected areas at the required speed, while communications infrastructure is similarly important as it allows for reporting and diagnosis. The data show that any action to strengthen services in these areas would be beneficial,” the foundation noted.
Mo Ibrahim further said UNECA reports indicate that in terms of the wider impact of COVID-19, on the economy and beyond, the pandemic will hit economic growth from an expected 3.2% down to 1.8%.
“If not addressed in a collective and organised way, this could reverse the positive growth of the past decade and impact areas where Africa has steadily progressed, be it the fight against malaria or against poverty,” it said.
This, the foundation said, could spill over beyond the economy and put to test the institutional fragility of some countries, fuelling further conflicts and instability.
The statement comes a day after IGAD member states resolved to establish an IGAD emergency fund to fight the current COVID-19 pandemic.
The Heads of States of Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, Somalia and South Sudan in a teleconference held on Monday said the move aims at mitigating the economic impact of the pandemic.
"The Heads of State have tasked regional ministers of finance to carry out a comprehensive assessment with a view of establishing an IGAD emergency fund" read a statement to newsrooms.