Cross country lessons sharing on practices, challenges and innovation in primary health care revitalization and universal health coverage implementation among 18 countries in the WHO African Region.

The fifth health sector directors´ policy and planning meeting for the World Health Organization (WHO) regional office for Africa convened to focus on building health system resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure continuity of essential health services, primary health care (PHC) revitalization, and health system strengthening towards achieving universal health coverage (UHC). In this paper, we present short summaries and experiences shared by 18 countries, for which their practices and outcomes have been documented in this manuscript. These actions are aligned with six key themes: (i) defining and making more essential health services available, (ii) increasing service coverage targeting hard to reach populations, (iii) financial risk protection, (iv) improving user satisfaction with services, (v) improving health security, and (vi) improving coverage with health-related sector services. It is through these shared country experiences that lessons are learned that can influence the region´s work and advancement to achieve UHC through a PHC approach.

Building health system resilience in the context of primary health care revitalization for attainment of UHC: proceedings from the Fifth Health Sector Directors' Policy and Planning Meeting for the WHO African Region.

BACKGROUND: The recent 2018 Declaration of Astana recognized primary health care (PHC) as a means to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Following this declaration, country progress on operationalization of the PHC agenda and attainment of UHC has been stalled by the new challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has also disrupted the continuity of essential health service provision and tested the resilience of the region's health systems. METHODS: In accordance with this, the WHO Regional Office for Africa convened the Fifth Health Sector Directors' Planning and Policy Meeting across the 47 Member States of the Region. The two-day forum focused on building health system resilience to facilitate service continuity during health threats, PHC revitalization, and health systems strengthening towards UHC. RESULTS: The Regional Forum provided evidence on building resilient health systems in the WHO African Region and engaged participants in meaningful and critical discussion. It is from these discussions that four key themes emerged: (1) working multisectorally/intersectorally, (2) moving from fragmentation to integration, (3) ensuring implementation and knowledge exchange, and (4) rethinking resilience and embracing antifragility. These discussions and associated groupings by thematic areas lend themselves to recommendations for the WHO. CONCLUSIONS: This paper details the proceedings and key findings on building resilient health systems, the four themes that emerged from participant deliberation, and the recommendations that have emerged from the meeting. Deliberations from the Regional Forum are critical, as they have the potential to directly inform policy and program design, given that the meeting convenes health sector technocrats, who are at the helm of policy design, action, and implementation.

The outbreak of meningitis due to Neisseria meningitidis W135 in 2003 in Burkina Faso and the national response: main lessons learnt.

Among the countries situated in the African meningitis belt, Burkina Faso is usually the one which pays the highest toll to this disease in terms of morbidity and mortality. Until 2002, the causal agent of the epidemic was usually Neisseria meningitidis serogroup A. At the onset of the 2002 epidemic, N. meningitidis W135 was identified as the predominant serogroup by the national reference hospital and the WHO, and this was confirmed by the WHO collaborating centre on meningitis in Oslo, Norway. Due to the nonavailability of an affordable and effective vaccine, the only adequate strategy was proper case management, taking advantage of the sensitivity of the bacteria to the currently used antibiotics. In order to avoid the repetition of such a situation, WHO and GlaxoSmithKline, with the financial support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, planned and actually realized the production of a trivalent ACW135 vaccine in anticipation of the 2003 epidemic season. In order for the vaccine to be effectively used in the field, it was imperative that various ethical, managerial and technical conditions be fulfilled. The successful use of the trivalent polysaccharide vaccine ACW135 in Burkina Faso during the 2003 outbreak was essentially due to the high level of leadership demonstrated by the national authorities of Burkina Faso, the facilitating role of WHO, the effective coordination of partners and activities, the transparency in the response to the epidemic and the management of the resources.