Health Policy, Evidence and Practice Gaps in The Response to the Pandemic in Africa, the case of Ghana

Citation

Walsh M (2022) Health Policy, Evidence and Practice Gaps in The Response to the Pandemic in Africa, the case of Ghana. In: Tellwell Talent. https://tellwellpublishing.com/

Abstract
The Sars Covid Pandemic was expected to ravage African countries but learning from previous epidemics helped mitigate Covid. Key to successful mitigation and recovery from the pandemic is health systems strengthening but we argue the current Six Building Blocks approach as put forward by the World Health Organisation has inconsistencies arising from, amongst other things, the meaning of equity and from ethical framing. Morever disruption of health systems by Covid in Africa remains severe and has consequences, especially for women and children. In Ghana this means the Covid response that was successful in helping to mitigate the impact of Covid may also have longer run consequences that may be revealed in coming years in higher perinatal and child mortality both of which were existing areas of concern for Ghana health policy. Health systems strengthening requires increased community involvement as both the source and beneficiary of resilience to future Covid waves, future epidemics and long run healthcare improvement. However, in Ghana Covid revealed pre-existing engagement gaps in the Human Resources Building Block that may delay the longer run health system recovery from the Pandemic and make harder the process of overall strengthening of the Ghana health system.

Keywords
Covid, Africa, Health Systems Strengthening, Human Resources, Perinatal Mortality, Neo-natal mortality