How Uganda Contained Ebola Outbreak Despite Shifts in Global Health Funding

Medical students have found creative ways to pitch in during the Coronavirus pandemic when they are not yet certified to work with patients. Students across the country are organizing to help out by doing things like offering childcare for medical workers and sourcing personal protective equipment from a range of businesses. The students themselves say that they are happy to do "anything we can do to relieve burden on the real heroes.”

Teams of Community Direct Distributors (CDD) are leading drug distribution campaigns to prevent and eliminate neglected tropical diseases in hard-to-reach, rural areas. These CDDs are members of the community they serve and are trained to educate the locals on disease prevention and administer the drugs themselves. With the CDDs’ help, several states have already eliminated some diseases and greatly reduced the spread of others.

The Damien Foundation works to support people living with conditions like tuberculosis and leprosy, specifically focusing on alleviating challenges those living in leprosy settlements face when the government won’t step in. The Foundation has provided access to potable water, toilets and waste management systems and has also worked to pay school fees for children in the settlements to get them back in school.

In March when fewer than 100 coronavirus infections had been found in the U.K, researchers in Cambridge decided to begin sequencing coronavirus samples as part of an "unparalleled surveillance system for Covid" that could identify and track possible mutations or the virus. This effort – which involves labs sending leftover material from testing swabs to the researcher's genomics lab where they are stored and analyzed – has culminated in hundreds of thousands of genome sequences and "sounded an alarm for the world" about the new fast-spreading variant.

Data from mobile phones was used to create infection models that present how COVID-19 is spreading. Researchers plotted where people went, where they were coming from, how crowded those places were, and how long they stayed there alongside the number of cases in those neighborhoods to show that the three most common places of catching the virus are restaurants, gyms, and hotels. The research can inform public policy decisions to keep people safe by implementing effective and limited lockdowns which can prevent the spread of the virus as well as limit the financial fallout for businesses.

Mobile phone apps allow NGOs to track public health threats. In Honduras, the medical charity, Medicine Sans Frontiers (MSF) uses GIS technology and mobile phone apps to assist in their efforts against dengue fever outbreaks. Apps allow residents to report outbreaks, which helps the charity apply its efforts where they are most needed. MSF also uses apps to learn about conditions in the communities it serves.

Boosting trust in vaccines requires rebuilding confidence in the health system. In France, where as many as one in three people express skepticism regarding vaccinations, health officials have undertaken proactive social media campaigns against disinformation in addition to increasing mandatory vaccine requirements for children. The lag in vaccinations among the French follows decades where several high profile failures of the health system led to widespread distrust and harmful long-term effects on vaccination rates.

Enrolling community members as Volunteer Community Mobilizers (VCMs) dramatically increases the effectiveness of public health campaigns. In Nigeria, the Jigawa State Primary Healthcare Development Agency has made progress with regard to immunization rates through its health ambassador program. The VCMs act as links between the localities and the public health services, ensuring that each that child receives vaccinations on schedule. The state has also used VCMs to increase the frequency of home visits and outreach efforts.

Connecting villagers to local governments and researchers is important to controlling possible disease outbreaks at their source. The One Health disease protection program, also known as PODD, uses funding from Ending Pandemics, a San Francisco nonprofit, to run an app and system through which villagers and local officials can interface with health organizations. A special app developed translates local languages and transmits information back to organizations, agencies, and researchers at local universities.

Colombia used a public health model of prevention to attack violent crime and has seen the homicide rate drop by 82 percent. The approach required the work of numerous public sectors, not just law enforcement, and a reliance on data to drive strategy. The country still has a higher-that-average murder rate, but the experience of several cities taking this approach offers key lessons for others to follow.