Time and time again, Africa as a continent experiences public health events resulting into increased morbidity and mortality. Several countries in the continent are already struggling in development and provision of adequate universal health care needs to their population. Over the years of human existence, the occurrence of natural disasters, civil unrests compounded by epidemics of communicable diseases affect communities both socially and economically despicably.

With this in mind, during the 2016 Regional committee, Ministers of Health from the African Region adopted a comprehensive strategy for Health Security and Emergencies. A particular note was made to build resilient health systems and strength implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) that constitute the essential vehicles for addressing regional and eventually global health security. Also, a recent Heads of State and Government Summit in Addis Ababa adopted the Declaration on Accelerating Implementation of International Health Regulations in Africa emphasizing the commitment to achieving health security in the region.

To this end, WHO developed the post 2015 IHR monitoring and evaluation framework comprising of IHR Annual Reporting, After Action Reviews, Simulation exercises and Joint External Evaluations. The region has had some remarkable achievements towards this end.

To date,

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23countries out of 47 in the WHO Africa Region have successfully conducted joint external evaluation (JEE) of IHR core capacities in a multisectoral approach with WHO Regional coordination support,

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7 of 10 targeted outbreaks of grade 2 / 3 level  have had  After Action Reviews conducted 

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14 countries have tested various functionalities of a response system using WHO simulation exercise tools.

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3 National Action Plans for health security have been completed

It is the Regional Office’s target to support at least 13 more Member States to develop their costed NAPHS before the end of this year. The objective of this training is to orient WHO AFRO technical staff and partners participating in this event to facilitate and assist countries in developing NAPHS in order to streamline and accelerate the NAPHS process. The expectation of this highly necessary training is to develop a pool of NAPHS facilitators and trainers who will be able to support Member States in developing the integrative, evidence-based, and costed NAPHS. The training was held on 3-4 October in Nairobi, Kenya. The training was attended by 24 WCO and partners, such as OIE, CDC, Resolved, and PHE. NAPHS training for the other WHO regions are currently being prepared for.

Check out the Photo Gallery of AFRO NAPHS Training