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This is the best time to plan for urban Africa’s next health emergency
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This is the best time to plan for urban Africa’s next health emergency
Health, it turns out, is everybody’s business. The Covid-19 pandemic has made this clear, laying bare the gaping cracks in our societal systems that have driven the emergence and unprecedented transmission of a novel coronavirus; and highlighting the need for a more health-aligned societal reset.
An important step on the journey to reset is re-thinking and reframing our definition of an emergency response; and key to this is internalizing the preventable nature of (this and future) health emergencies. The conventional response to pandemics is to convene emergency response and preparedness teams. The response team deals with addressing the very real response required to the ongoing emergency, while the preparedness component seeks to strengthen capacities of communities to better weather emergencies and resist emerging hazards.