A nation’s economy can only be as good as its healthy population. From that vantage point, the reward of having a healthy society is well worth the risk of investing in a good and highly functioning public health system.
By Kemi Osukoya
March 2015
With all due respect to the 1980s health crisis, the year 2014 could well go down as one of the most frightening health periods ever experienced by the global community. Not since the HIV/AIDS crisis has the global population and the health industry been on such frantic alert.
The cascading Ebola outbreak in West Africa not only transfixed the world, it blasted away at the once notion of insular health incidents and forced the intervention hands of both public and private sectors around the world.
What started with one contact between human and animal in Guinea early last year quickly turned by summer into a very dire situation, leaving countries like the U.S, U.K and other developed countries, many of the world leaders and the less-informed population in a panic mode. By late September when the disease entered the Western world-U.S.-, followed by a death and the near death experience of U.S. healthcare workers, the biggest governments, NGOs, individuals and businesses finally sprung into action in a race to find a cure, and develop a vaccine.
Now, as the Ebola outbreak carnage ebbs, along with it came a lobotomy shift to examine the African healthcare systems and the global emergency response system: what lessons have we learned?
NO FAULT, NO FINGER POINTING
These have been interesting times for the African continent and the international community. “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” it’s a phrase that we have all heard one time or the other, and in this context it fits well and captures the scope and the complexity of how the outbreak unnerved what was once thought to be a perfect system.
As former U.N. Humanitarian Affairs Chief Valerie Amos noted recently during a session at this year WEForum in Davos and at a meeting at the New York headquartered office of Council on Foreign Relations, the international community was not prepared and didn’t have the right systems in place to respond to such situation.
It’s not often that you hear world leaders, at least some of them, admit that they dropped the ball on one of their duties, but that’s exactly what happened when Amos acknowledged that the international community’s response to the crisis was sluggish in rallying up and coordinating help to the region promptly enough to stop the outbreak from spreading to neighboring countries during the early stages through the peak period of the outbreak.
“Ebola is one of the major challenges the International community has coordinated,” said Amos. “We were too slow in bringing in the help and coordination together.”
How could this have happened since Ebola is not a new disease? I’ll get to that later by the end of this article, for now, though, read on for a little perspective as I gleaned as best as I could.
The way the healthcare crisis of 2014 is remaking or about to remake the global health industry is reminiscent of the change process that took place after the financial crisis of 2008. Long before the crash in September 2008, there were sounding [loud] alarm bells that were ignored. Consider how long it took to hear those warning bells. But once the crisis hit home, it not only hit a few on Wall street or just the poor, but everyone in the global economy – from the rich to the very poor- were badly impacted, loud outcries went up to world leaders to protect the global economy. Now imagine the recent Ebola outbreak in the context of the 2008 financial crisis and the magnitude of the crisis or any other unforeseen similar health crisis become more clearer: Health issues can quickly become a national or a global health disaster if it is ignored. We just can’t simply ignore it anymore because it’s not in our proximity.
The global tapestry,- made of trade and trade facilitators, investors, and the public- a mix of a dominant, middle and small players, engaging in a vast array of different activities with varying degrees of skill and aptitude- that was once viewed through individual pattern, has always been a tightly interwoven thing.
The outbreak just exposed the complexity of the tapestry and calls for reexamination.
How do we take a holistic approach to creating functional public health systems that will address issues such as stigma? For example, responses to Ebola in many countries have been similar to how people first responded to HIV/AIDS disease when it was first reported. How then do we remove the stigmas associated with diseases and the fears that prevent people from reporting or seeking help for treatments?
SURVIVORS GIGANTISM
When the Ebola crisis subsides, some countries will be the beneficiaries of unforeseen consequences – as in upgrading and investing more in their health sector and will emerge stronger and better positioned to serve their societies.
Countries like Nigeria, Senegal and Mali benefitted greatly for having functioning public health systems in place before the outbreak hit their nations.
Nigeria, one of Africa’s biggest players and the highest grossing GDP on the continent was able to respond swiftly and aggressively to the outbreak by directing a well designed polio health program.
Senegal and Mali, two relatively small countries in West Africa, were able to capitalize on their healthy political systems by engaging both the political leaders and the civil society leaders to nip the outbreak before it became too massive.
MIDDLE GROUND
The Ebola outbreak has opened the door for the international community to start a new conversation and reexamine current humanitarian and emergency response systems.
As the tides start turning for Ebola, it’s important that we don’t lose focus on the resources needed to continue fighting the virus.
Ebola is not a new virus. So also are the situations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. If we knew how to protect people against Ebola, why did it take awhile to curb the spread of the virus in Africa?
How then did the international health system drop the ball?
According to news reports, drugs and vaccines for diseases such as Ebola are not developed because there are not enough economic incentives for pharmaceutical companies. In another words, experimental drugs like this would require a lot of subsidies, which is not good for investments. If this is the case, how then do we create strong health systems that allow for the development of less profitable drugs or vaccines to meet the demands of poor nations?
What lessons have we learned by not developing drug for diseases such as Ebola? What are the things that can make the most difference and what resources can help us better prepare when the next outbreak comes along?
How do we take a holistic approach to creating functional public health systems that will address issues such as stigma? For example, responses to Ebola in many countries have been similar to how people first responded to HIV/AIDS disease when it was first reported. How then do we remove the stigmas associated with diseases and the fears that prevent people from reporting or seeking help for treatments?
These are just some of the questions and structural systems that world leaders should be examining and looking to have in place, if they haven’t already started doing so.
CHANGE AGENT
Looking ahead, the private sector and the public sector should see this as an opportunity to work together to design better effective systems. The government and civil society leaders should tap into the business leaders’ knowledge to scrap what hasn’t worked, and commit to better outcomes that will benefit their people.
It will be a win-win situation for all around. On the public sector side, the society gain an efficacy health system, the government looks good. On the private sector, businesses and investors do goods and make money at the same time.
It all seems easy. Yes, it’s in fact easier to institute, once all players get involved and see a health crisis as similar to a financial crisis: A nation’s economy can only be as good as its healthy population. From that vantage point, the reward of having a healthy society is well worth the risk of investing in a good and highly functioning public health system. Fewer death from disease outbreaks, anyway.
But here’s the ultimate prize: turning a crisis into a change agent and opportunity. Because if we let this opportunity pass by without seizing it to put in place all the shock absorbers that would safeguard our healthcare systems during health crisis, the carnage from the next outbreak could be a lot more worst than Ebola.
Copyright © 2015 THE AFRICA BAZAAR magazine, a production of ImeK Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
