Africa’s ability to effectively respond to future disease outbreaks will largely depend on building stronger, community-based health systems, according to global health experts.
Speaking at the 26th International AIDS Conference in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil, Dr Vincent Muturi-Kioi, HIV Vaccines Product Development Team Lead at international non-profit IAVI, highlighted that lessons learned over decades of responding to HIV are vital for tackling emerging infectious diseases like Ebola.
Muturi-Kioi urged African nations to boost local preparedness by securing essential counter-measures before crises hit.
“African countries are experiencing more and more outbreaks of these emerging infectious diseases,” said Muturi-Kioi. “We need to be better prepared with countermeasures, vaccines and drugs in countries that are able to respond much faster to prevent these outbreaks from getting large and out of control.”
He added that for diseases such as Ebola, establishing local stockpiles in high-risk regions and vaccinating healthcare workers in advance with tested vaccines would significantly improve outcomes on the ground.
–ChannelAfrica–
