#COVID19 and Organizational response.
This pandemic has ensured that community based prevention remains at the forefront of our strategy. Affected communities have been involved in the planning and provision of targeted services such as peer education and outreach, and have helped shape the research agendas. We have to adopt a pragmatic approach which has to be highly cost effective.
In the lead up to this article, there has been a vigorous debate about how #COVID19 fits within the context of broader efforts to strengthen health systems and to address current issue such as #UHC that is now becoming a leading debate across the globe. These are not competing interests. #COVID19 has forced the world to think differently about public health and its relationship to communities including the most marginalised. Our learning from #COVID19 needs to inform our approaches to public health across the board.
Increasingly it is our responsibility to ensure #COVID19 responses, complement and support broader efforts to improve the health of our nations and to mobilise the resources required to sustain equitable access to all essential health services, particularly for the poor and vulnerable.
However, one of the lessons of this pandemic over the last few months is that none of us can afford to be complacent. In many countries we are starting to see rises in new cases of #COVID19 in some of our cities. Various Governments are working with communities and researchers to understand the reasons for new trends and to respond accordingly. This is a great opportunity to adjust our global, regional and national responses to make them more effective, so that we can meet our agreed targets, which is "boxing in" the virus. To do so requires the leadership, courage, concerted efforts and mobilization skills to advocate more programme strategies in our country and beyond to inform its roll out and expansion.
The purpose of this action is to implement #COVID19 Evaluation, Assessment, and Formative Research Task Order to take stock of key programs at various stages of implementation in order to extract lessons learned, best practices, and remaining challenges. Undertaking this capacity evaluation strategy will help examine the effectiveness of the program implementation in order to inform its roll out and expansion. It will also explore which elements of the current implementation are most effective and should be continued, where the gaps are, how the successful elements can be adapted for the post - primary target groups, and, given the accomplishments, how the program should develop and evolve.
Eloke Onyebuchi is a public health specialist, a #UHC and quality healthcare advocate, healthcare management consultant and the lead consultant/ CEO of Onyibupet Consulting Limited: A health sector consulting)
