Exploring the burden of cholera in the WHO African region: patterns and trends from 2000 to 2023 cholera outbreak data.

Introduction: Cholera outbreaks remain persistent in the WHO African region, with an increased trend in recent years. This study analyses actual drivers of cholera including correlations with water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) indicators, and climate change trends.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive and analytic study.

An assessment of the progress made in the implementation of the regional framework for cholera prevention and control in the WHO African region.

High-burden cholera outbreaks, spreading beyond the traditional cholera-endemic countries, have been reported since 2021 in the WHO African region. Member states in the region have committed to the global goal of cholera elimination by 2030. To track progress towards this goal, WHO-African countries adopted a regional cholera prevention and control framework in 2018.

Feasibility of introducing integrated disease surveillance and response into curricula of public health training institutions in Sierra Leone: the process and lessons learnt.

Introduction: Response to public health emergencies is a big challenge in African countries due to inadequate workforce. Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) is a strategy implemented by African member states of WHO to strengthen capacity for disease surveillance and response at all levels. Despite successful implementation of IDSR in most countries, one of the challenges that persists is that of inadequate trained workforce competent enough for public health surveillance.

Predictors of disease outbreaks at continental-scale in the African region: Insights and predictions with geospatial artificial intelligence using earth observations and routine disease surveillance data.

Objectives: Our research adopts computational techniques to analyze disease outbreaks weekly over a large geographic area while maintaining local-level analysis by incorporating relevant high-spatial resolution cultural and environmental datasets. The abundance of data about disease outbreaks gives scientists an excellent opportunity to uncover patterns in disease spread and make future predictions. However, data over a sizeable geographic area quickly outpace human cognition.

Willingness of WHO staff to work in health emergencies in the African Region: opportunity for phased deployment of staff and ensure continuity of health services.

A human resource base that ensures appropriate deployment of staff to emergencies, addressing different shock events in emergencies, without disrupting continuity of service is germane to a successful response. Consequently, the WHO Health Emergencies programme in the African Region, in collaboration with Africa Centre for Disease Control (ACDC) launched the African Volunteer Health Corps (AVoHC) and Strengthening and Utilization of Response Group for Emergencies (SURGE), an initiative aimed at ensuring a pool of timely responders. We explored the willingness of WHO staff to work in emergencies.

What are the research priorities for strengthening public health emergency preparedness and response in Africa?

Background: Research evidence is needed to strengthen capacities in emergency preparedness and response (EPR). However, the absence of a clear research agenda limits the optimal use of research evidence. This paper reports on the prioritization of research questions and topics that could contribute to evidence-informed strengthening of EPR capacities in the African region.

Trends in public health emergencies in the WHO African Region: an analysis of the past two decades public health events from 2001 to 2022.

The African Region reports the heaviest burden of public health emergencies globally. This paper presents an exploratory analysis of public health events data collected the past 22 years in the WHO Africa region, to explore patterns and trends that can inform public health strategies, policy changes and develop appropriate tools to improve disease surveillance, preparedness and response to public health emergencies. A suite of exploratory data analysis methods combining time series analysis, summary statistics, temporal visualisations, geographic information system (GIS) mapping, trend analysis and statistical tests were used to derive patterns and trends from the data.

A step towards reinvigorating the COVID-19 response: an intra-action review of the WHO Regional Office for Africa Incident Management Support Team.

The WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) COVID-19 Incident Management Support Team (IMST) was first established on 21 January 2020 to coordinate the response to the pandemic in line with the Emergency Response Framework and has undergone three modifications based on intra-action reviews (IAR). An IAR of the WHO AFRO COVID-19 IMST was conducted to document best practices, challenges, lessons learnt and areas for improvement from the start of 2021 to the end of the third wave in November 2021. In addition, it was designed to contribute to improving the response to COVID-19 in the Region.