Recently, there have been disease outbreaks on international or regional scales. The major challenge sets in due to the inadequacy of the public health systems to aptly respond to prevent the rapid spread of these outbreaks. In order to create a state of global health security, countries should embrace robust and effective multi-sectoral systems so as to create a rapid response and detection of both the domestic and regional health threats, particularly those posed by communicable diseases. This essay entails a summary of the article on the response to communicable diseases in internationally mobile populations at the points of entry as well as along the porous borders of Nigeria, Togo, and Benin. The impact of disease outbreaks such as Ebola was unprecedented in terms of its scale and impact in West Africa (Heymann et al., 2015). This calls for the adoption of strategies to mitigate the impact of such outbreaks.
The major outlines in the article describe the strengthening strategies as well as the lessons learned through the integration of such strategies in West African countries such as Nigeria, Togo, and Benin. The first border health strategy involved the development of points of entry (POE)-specific public health emergency response plans (PHERPs) and standard operating procedures (SOPs). All these included a multi-agency plan which describes specific procedures geared at preventing the introduction and transmission of potentially communicable diseases through the same POE at the routine and response operations. Putting the SOPs in writing to be available, trained on and executed creates timely as well as coordinated responses with sectors involved. This strategy was even applied to the airport context in conjunction with public health practitioners, airport authorities, and the police. It was geared at seeing that all the concerned agencies collaborate to ensure the coordination and implementation of PHERP.
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Another strategy which was designed established the priorities aimed at the capacity building as well as identified POE and border regions. Many nations in most instances have insufficient funds and the required personnel to build effective and robust border health capacities in all their POEs. Through the use of WHO International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005 self-assessment tools, nations are enabled to quantitatively measure their current IHR capacities. On a specific term, the guide is capable of measuring the qualitative information on a number of things such as communication capacity, information and data systems, as well as referral and response systems. The third border health strategy is dubbed a timely cross border and the regional public health collaboration. In order to support multinational and binational public health coordination and collaboration, nations are obliged to develop and disseminate the local and national level plans. This gives a definition of when the information should be shared across the border and other counterparts.
Out of the strategies employed, there were lessons learned in each. For the first strategy, the approved plan for the strategy works as one of the first IHR 2005 compliant in the western part of the African continent. In regards to the lesson learned in the first strategy, the workshops and tools used can be adapted for application as other types of POE, for instance, ground crossings or seaports (Merrill et al., 2017). The second border strategy was also marked by some success, for instance, the Border Health Capacity Discussion Guide (BHCDG) results and findings collected from POE showed details concerning lack of referral mechanisms and transport for ill travelers found within borders. The ministry of health adopted the BHCDG to focus on border issues. The third strategy had the participants noting that they will employ the final compendium for the jointly processed documents as a training template for their officials operating along the borders. As noted in the discussion section, human mobility is linked to the spread of infectious diseases. Due to the expansion of transport bases and passengers, pathogens and their vectors soar in numbers. Despite the challenges faced by developing countries such as insufficient funds and lack of personnel, the achievement of better services relies on the implementation of comprehensive border strategies.
References
Heymann, D. L., Chen, L., Takemi, K., Fidler, D. P., Tappero, J. W., Thomas, M. J., ... & Kalache, A. (2015). Global health security: The wider lessons from the West African Ebola virus disease epidemic. The Lancet , 385 (9980), 1884-1901. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60858-3
Merrill, R. D., Rogers, K., Ward, S., Ojo, O., Kakaī, C. G., Agbeko, T. T., ... & Bamsa, O. (2017). Responding to communicable diseases in internationally mobile populations at points of entry and along porous borders, Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. Emerging Infectious Diseases , 23 (Suppl 1), S114. Retrieved from: https://dx.doi.org/10.3201%2Feid2313.170520
