Abstract
Background: The current wave of Hemorrhagic fevers currently being witnessed require increased bio-risk assessment exercises and vigilance at all levels of the healthcare continuum. This article review will outline key subjects from an agenda-setting, multi-disciplinary panel convened to examine implications for health systems in Kenya. Discussion: Researchers‟ personal stories and media debates to define fundamental issues and opportunities for preparedness focused on three inter-linked subjects. First, the risks of the fear response itself were underlined as a danger to the reliability and stability of quality care. Second, healthcare workers‟ reservations were complicated by a demonstrable lack of societal and personal protections for infection prevention and control in communities and healthcare facilities, as evidenced by an ongoing cholera epidemic affecting over 5,000 patients across Kenya in 2015 alone. Third, a lack of clear messaging and course from leadership have limited organization and strengthened a level of suspicion in the government‟s ability and obligation to mobilize an adequate response. Initial recommendations include urgent investment in the needed supplies and infrastructure for basic, routine infection control in communities and healthcare facilities, provision of assurances with securities for frontline healthcare workers, establishment of a multi-sector, “all-hazards” outbreak surveillance system, and engaging directly with key community groups to co-produce contextually relevant educational messages that will help decrease stigma, fear, and the demoralizing perception that the diseases defy remedy or control. Summary: The occurrence of hemorrhagic fevers especially the Ebola outbreak in West Africa provides an unprecedented opportunity for other countries like Kenya to make progress on tackling long-standing health systems weaknesses. These discussions emphasized the urgent need to strengthen capacity for infection control, occupational health and safety, and leadership coordination. Substantial commitment is needed to raise standards of hygiene in communities and health facilities, build mechanisms for co-operation across sectors, and engage community stakeholders in creating the needed solutions. It would be both distressing and irresponsible to waste the opportunity.
Highlights
Hemorrhagic fevers are increasingly being experienced around the world
The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic in West Africa was reported in three countries (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) with a death toll of over 11,400 people and over 21,200 cases as of January 15, 2015[1]
3.1 Stories on giving patient care during the crisis in West Africa. This session asked “How difficult has it been to care for patients with unknown infections in the past?” Participants shared anecdotal stories they had heard as a basis for the debate. Many of their stories were strikingly similar to reports coming from West Africa, illustrating how a reasonable yet crippling fear of the Ebola Disease threatens to remove the spirit and confidence of frontline healthcare workers in the face of this threat to health and the health systems
Summary
Hemorrhagic fevers are increasingly being experienced around the world. The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic in West Africa was reported in three countries (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) with a death toll of over 11,400 people and over 21,200 cases as of January 15, 2015[1].In August 2014 the WHO declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Travel-associated cases were documented in five additional countries, and effects were being felt worldwide Efforts to understand this global health crisis and the calls to action have mainly focused on the socioeconomic consequences and erosion of gains in healthcare for people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone [2]. Summary: The occurrence of hemorrhagic fevers especially the Ebola outbreak in West Africa provides an unprecedented opportunity for other countries like Kenya to make progress on tackling long-standing health systems weaknesses. These discussions emphasized the urgent need to strengthen capacity for infection control, occupational health and safety, and leadership coordination.
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