Strengthening Cameroon’s One Health Capacities for Pandemic Preparedness and Response

Background

Cameroon was awarded US$23.50 million from the Pandemic Fund to enhance the country’s resilience to public health emergencies. The grant mobilized an additional US$112.3 million in co-financing from international partners, as well as US$24 million in co-investment from the government’s own budget. The project has also brought together civil society partners such as the Cameroon Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Located in the Congo Basin, Cameroon grapples with regional instability, porous national borders, natural disasters, and large-scale movement within the country, including more than 2 million displaced people. All of these factors exacerbate the country’s risk of epidemics. Severe flooding in the Sahel, for example, led to a resurgence of cholera cases in Cameroon. Additionally, the country's people are coming into increasing contact with wildlife, due to factors such as hunting, deforestation, logging, and mining, increasing the risk of epizootics.

In response to the complexity of its public health landscape, Cameroon’s project emphasizes multisectoral collaboration. The project is led by the Ministry of Public Health, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection, and Sustainable Development, the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, and the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries, and Animal Industries. It will receive support from three implementing entities: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), UNICEF, and the World Bank.

Project objectives

With the support of partners and the Pandemic Fund, Cameroon seeks, over three years, to reduce the health, social, and economic impacts of public health emergencies by strengthening pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (PPR).

Implementation arrangements and key components

Cameroon's project aligns with the Pandemic Fund’s three priorities -- surveillance, laboratory systems, and workforce development – as well as critical governance functions. More detail on each of these components follows.

Strengthening early warning surveillance systems. This work entails developing surveillance capabilities at strategic points of entry, adding sentinel sites to improve antimicrobial resistance surveillance, establishing regional call centers to expand event-based surveillance, and digitalizing community-based surveillance in more than 40 of Cameroon’s municipalities. It also focuses on integrating information across the human, animal, and environmental health sectors and making use of Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources.

Upgrading laboratory systems. This component focuses on operationalizing a real-time, multisectoral Laboratory Information Management System, applying global standards and institutionalizing quality assurance functions across 50 laboratories, and optimizing sample referral and transport. It also requires strengthening multisectoral diagnostic and genomic surveillance for priority diseases, such as cholera, meningitis, and hemorrhagic fevers.

Reinforcing the One Health workforce. Activities in this area focus on developing and implementing a One Health surge strategy for high-risk municipalities and setting up and training integrated rapid response teams. They also focus on expanding Field Epidemiology Training Programs and In-Service Applied Veterinary Epidemiology Trainings, as well as training and equipping community health workers, municipal stakeholders, and CBOs.

Increasing cross-sectoral coordination. This component centers on developing a National Action Plan for Health Security, institutionalizing the One Health platform at national and subnational levels, operationalizing ten regional Public Health Emergency Operations Centers, and strengthening mechanisms for managing public health events (in alignment with International Health Regulations) and responding to priority zoonotic diseases.

Improving resource management and mobilization. Activities in this area include establishing strong resource management and planning mechanisms to enhance the effectiveness, transparency, and efficiency of pandemic PPR investments, as well as using a performance-based approach to promote domestic and international resource mobilization.

Enhancing financial management. This work focuses on establishing robust financial management systems to improve the stewardship of both domestic and external financing.

The FAO will support animal health activities and help foster the One Health approach. UNICEF will support risk communication and community engagement, the development of the community health workforce, and emergency logistics management. The World Bank will bring its technical and multisectoral expertise, as well as its experience coordinating high-level political and institutional responses, to support a range of project activities.