Leaving no disease behind: The roadmap to securing universal health security and what this means for the surveillance of infectious diseases in Ghana as a precedent for sub-Saharan Africa

Mahama, P.N-j., Kabo-bah, A.T., Falchetta, G. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2607-2195, Blanford, J.I., Yamba, E.I., Antwi-Agyei, P., Asiedu-Bekoe, F., Awuah, E., et al. (2023). Leaving no disease behind: The roadmap to securing universal health security and what this means for the surveillance of infectious diseases in Ghana as a precedent for sub-Saharan Africa. PLoS ONE 18 (4) e0284931. 10.1371/journal.pone.0284931.

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Abstract

Introduction: Ghana is the first country in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to aim for universal health coverage (UHC). Based on Ghana's UHC system, the accessibility and distribution of healthcare facilities were evaluated for 2020. Projecting into 2030, this study aimed at providing geographical information data for guiding future policies on siting required healthcare facilities. Ghana as a precedent for SSA was evaluated and proposed to "leave no disease behind" in the surveillance of infectious diseases (IDs). This is to reinforce the sustainable development goals (SDG) 3 agenda on health that underpins monitoring equity in "leaving no one behind."

Methods: Geospatial accessibility, travel time data, and algorithms were employed to evaluate the universality and accessibility of healthcare facilities, and their future projections to meet UHC by 2030. Healthcare facilities as surveillance sites were compared to community-based surveillance to identify which would be more applicable as a surveillance system to leave no disease behind in Ghana.

Findings: Ghana has 93.8%, 6.1% and 0.1% as primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities respectively. It has 26.1% of healthcare facilities remaining to meet the SDG 3 health target by 2030. In terms of providing quality healthcare, 29.3% and 67.2% of the additional required healthcare facilities for optimal allocation and achieving the UHC target need to be secondary and tertiary respectively. In assessing the broad spectrum of IDs studied from 2000 to 2020, an average of 226 IDs were endemic or potentially endemic to Ghana. The majority of the studies carried out to identify these IDs were done through community-based surveillance.

Conclusion: Establishing community-based surveillance sites to leave no disease behind and also providing the required healthcare facilities to reinforce leaving no one behind will enhance the universal health security of Ghana as a precedent for SSA.

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