Lessons Learned in Improving the Quality of a Free Reproductive Health Hotline in Benin

Abstract

Benin's Ligne Verte reproductive health hotline is filling information gaps and linking callers to services while getting regular feedback from its users to improve the service provided.

Implementation of Emergency Preparedness and Response-Rapid Team Program in Niger

“…With the entry into force of the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) in June 2007, WHO and States Parties committed to detect, verify, assess and report events that may pose a threat to global health security. [1][2][3][4][5] Globally, in 2019, a total of 483 public health events were detected, recorded in the EMS, and monitored by WHO, of which 108 (22%) occurred in 35 IHR States Parties in the WHO African Region. [5][6][7][8] While the IHR ( 2005) uses an all-hazards approach, infectious diseases have represented the vast majority of hazards among substantiated events reported globally and specifically across the WHO African Region among the 103 substantiated events, 81 (79%) were classified as infectious, 13 (13%) as disaster, 6 (6%) as animal/zoonosis, and 3 (3%) as food safety.…”

“…For instance, coordination has been noted as an essential component of the quality of emergency response management particularly for previous responses of Ebola and Marburg [8][9][10][11]. The coordination of the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa was characterized by the unpreparedness and poor coordination of the response at the national and regional levels, leading to its fast spread [5,[10][11][12][13][14]. Learning from the past lessons of response, the subsequent coordination efforts in the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which faced additional challenges due to armed rebel groups being at the epicenters' of the epidemic) and in Guinea in 2021 [5,[14][15][16][17] resulted in strengthened inter-state coordination.…”

“…The coordination of the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa was characterized by the unpreparedness and poor coordination of the response at the national and regional levels, leading to its fast spread [5,[10][11][12][13][14]. Learning from the past lessons of response, the subsequent coordination efforts in the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which faced additional challenges due to armed rebel groups being at the epicenters' of the epidemic) and in Guinea in 2021 [5,[14][15][16][17] resulted in strengthened inter-state coordination. The coordination mechanism involved the WHO regional office for Africa and Africa Union (AU) member states through the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).…”