By Lovemore Khomo
World Health Organisation (WHO) says Malawi require $30 million for health emergency preparedness and response projects.
WHO African Region, Health Emergency Officer and Team Leader Dr. Otim Patrick Cossy Ramadan was speaking at the end of 5-day high level meeting on development of roadmap on preparedness and response to public health emergencies on Friday in Lilongwe.
Dr Ramadan explained that road map to implement core interventions that have been agreed by the delegation will help Malawi to better prepare on detecting and responding to emergencies.
“We look at how can be able to implement in phases in the first six months of the core interventions, so for next two weeks will have a technical team to work on way forward.” said Dr. Ramadan.
WHO together with African CDC has set aside strategies on emergency preparedness and response which are Promoting Resilience Of Systems For Emergencies (PROSE), Transforming African Surveillance Systems (TASS), and Strengthening and Utilizing Response Groups for Emergencies (SURGE) that have been adopted by 16 countries.
In her response, Minister of Health, Hon Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda expressed gratitude over initiation of the road map. She said this will support the country to deal with many of emergencies that has experienced in the past months.
“Malawi has gone through so many health emergencies in a short period of time, Covid 19, Polio, Cholera and Cyclone Freddy. Having proper systems as guided by WHO will help us on emergency response.” said Kandodo Chiponda.
Health Minister said the WHO team visited Malawi to appreciate what is already in place as other systems are already in place working.
She also expressed concern over shortage of Health Emergency Response personnel mainly working on Cholera cases in the country.
The two year roadmap on health preparedness and response is expected to support Malawi Government to strengthen multi-sectoral coordination mechanism through engagement between human, animal and environment ministries. Also it will scale-up implementation of integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) using the One Health approach and increase the number skilled human resource.
