By: Frank P. Martin
MONROVIA: Global health insecurity and devastation led to the death of millions of people as a result of the outbreak of Coronavirus Pandemic in December 2019.
The outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative to Liberia, Dr. Peter Clement, has taught people around the World a lesson.
Dr. Clement indicated that such a lesson should make the World to reflect on preparedness, prevention and rebuilding of resilient healthcare system for all.
He spoke at the opening of the 2nd Joint External Evaluation (JEE) 2023 exercise, held at the Ministerial Complex in Congo Town, outside Monrovia, on Monday, September 4, 2023.
“As we review this Joint External Evaluation (JEE), it is about time that we all look into what lesson we learnt from the Coronavirus Pandemic for protection of global health security,” Dr. Clement advised.
He reflected on Liberia’s health capacity development between September 5th and 9th 2015 when the foundation for sequent evaluation of the Country’s health sector was laid out following the end of the Ebola virus.
“In 2015, during the outbreak of Ebola in Liberia, the first reflection was to look at the capacity that existed in the health sector to implement the fight against the virus and strengthen national capacity,” Dr. Clement told the gathering.
The ongoing Joint External Evaluation exercise is a collaborative effort between the Liberian government, bolstered by the partnership support of the World Bank’s REDISSE project, and the World Health Organization (WHO).
With this ongoing meeting, the WHO Country Representative said, participants should muster the courage to evaluate the country’s health system and make recommendations which, when implemented, would propel the health system into resilient one, and to ably address future health-related outbreaks.
“We will have to look at some national health policies that would help us in the fight against any future outbreak, like we did during the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic when countries around the World were battling the pandemic as individuals,” he said.
Central to the protection of global health security, the WHO top official said, is the commitment that requires periodic assessment of progress in International Health Regulation (IHR) implementation, scheduled every five years through the JEE process.
This commitment, he said, is followed by State Parties Annual Reporting (SPAR), Simulation Exercises, and After-Action Reviews (AAR) of public health occurrences.
The current gathering is Liberia’s second Joint External Evaluation (JEE) of the International Health Regulation (IHR 2005) core capacities, marking a significant milestone in the nation’s commitment to global health security.
The JEE brings together a diverse groups of international experts every five years, fostering collective introspection into the Nation’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of preparedness, prevention, detection, and response to public health threats.
This review process also enables the identification of priority actions to enhance these fundamental capacities.
The JEE is a peer-to peer review event, led by a team of seasoned external experts mobilized by the WHO across the globe, using the “One Health Approach.”
This approach acknowledges the interconnection of human health with the wellbeing of animals and the environment, reflecting the evolving interactions among these components.”
In 2017, Liberia adopted the “One Health Approach”, uniting multidisciplinary and multi-sectorial stakeholders under a common goal of strengthening health security.
