November 2017

In 2014, an Ebola outbreak that started in Guinea and quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone threatened health systems across West Africa. During the crisis, the Côte d’Ivoire National Institute of Public Health (INSP) mobilized a One Health cross-sectoral collaboration in the country’s western regions bordering the Ebola-affected countries and established committees to address the epidemic.

Thanks to emergency funds made available by USAID, the Leadership, Management and Governance (LMG) project, led by MSH, quickly focused on supporting the committees to form and run more efficiently.  A six-year, global project that strengthened health systems to deliver more responsive services to more people—LMG also placed technical advisors at the regional health offices to support integrated supportive supervision visits, data validation workshops, planning, coordination, and communication.

On November 13, approximately 100 global health security and development experts, public health practitioners, private sector representatives, academics, researchers, NGO staff members, scientists and students gathered at Harvard Medical School for the Ready Together Conference on Epidemic Preparedness. The day-long event was co-hosted by No More Epidemics, Management Sciences for Health (MSH), Harvard Global Health Institute, and Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security with support from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation. We attempted to find answers to the following questions: 1. What are the financial, economic and other risks to the private sector associated with major disease outbreaks and what is being done to minimize risk and ensure resilience?; 2. What innovations have been developed for pandemic preparedness?; 3. How can a whole of society collaboration be enhanced to ensure global health security?; and 4. How can we overcome barriers, ensure country engagement and public private partnerships?

Here are 5 key takeaways from the discussion:

1. “We must stop ignoring the economic risks. We need Finance Ministers to recognize health threats.”- Peter Sands 

Watch Peter's keynote

(Crossposted from the FCI Program of MSH "Rights and Realities" blog).

Communities in the Mopti region of central Mali—which is home to several ethnic groups and to many people displaced by 2012 violence in the country’s northern region—continue to grapple with widespread sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), including forced and early marriage and other harmful practices. A majority of Malian girls are married by the time they reach 18, and 15% before the age of 15.  About 91% of women between 15 and 49 years old, as well as 69% of girls under 15, have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). And, as is true in so many conflict-affected areas, widespread sexual violence has been a tragic and infuriating effect of war, dislocation, and migration.