Why Africa – and the World – Remain Dangerously Unprepared for the Next Pandemic
Oyewale Tomori, Nigerian Academy of Science
As the news spread about the outbreak of Ebola in mid-May 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report about pandemics. The title was: A World on the Edge: Priorities for a Pandemic-Resilient Future.
The document was prepared by the WHO’s Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. It sets out why the world isn’t better prepared for pandemics a decade after Ebola exposed dangerous gaps. And six years after COVID-19 turned those gaps into a global catastrophe.
It adds that investment in pandemic preparedness has not kept pace with the rising risk of pandemics.
The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board is an independent monitoring and accountability body established in 2018 by the WHO and the World Bank. The aim was to strengthen preparedness for global health crises. It is composed of political leaders, agency principals and world-class experts. Its task is to provide assessments of global progress in building and sustaining the capacity to prevent, detect and respond to health emergencies.
The report was released during another Ebola epidemic. This time starting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On 17 May the WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. This means that it is a risk to many countries through international spread and hence requires global coordinated efforts.
As a virologist and former global health administrator, I believe the monitoring board’s diagnosis and recommendations are vitally important for managing pandemics.
My first observation about the report is that its recommendations remain largely unimplemented by many countries. This is particularly true in Africa, where pandemics thrive and disease epidemics rage and ravage.
Africa needs to specially build trust in its own ability to prepare for and prevent disease outbreaks, and control them when they do occur.
To achieve this, and in line with the recommendations, Africa must sustain:
- independent pandemic risk monitoring
- health workforce capability and retention
- equitable access to countermeasures such as vaccines
- financing
- political attention.
Independent pandemic risk monitoring
Using local resources and financing, African countries must own the solution to health through establishing data systems that uphold health sovereignty.
They must also ensure that data derived from surveillance, research and pathogen processing are securely managed and accountable to African institutions rather than foreign entities. Recent agreements with the US have brought this issue to the fore. Some were asking African countries to sign away their health data or prodigally release their precious pathogens in a barter exchange for donor funding.
But health data are an invaluable asset for public health, clinical management and research. They help countries identify diseases and develop vaccines and treatments.
What African countries should be doing instead is mobilising locally sourced counterpart funds. These should be used to create the local environment to support and enhance the capacity of indigenous scientists and researchers to develop innovations from national/natural pathogens for global benefits.
Two African health institutions should be at the centre of these endeavours: the WHO-Africa Region and the Africa Centers for Disease Control, an agency of the African Union. They must not compete, but collaborate and spearhead these efforts through centralised disease control and tracking scorecards.
Health workers
Fostering the well-being of health workforce results in growth, higher productivity, national pride and loyalty.
It also helps in long-term retention of health workers.
African countries need to prioritise capacity retention over capacity building. They must build and sustain a conducive work environment which involves physical workspace and psychological safety.
Availability of adequate resources is needed to function effectively and productively. This includes materials, laboratory facilities, supplies, reagents and consumables for a trained African health workforce and researchers.
Under such enabling conditions, the health workforce can focus on relevant and local health issues and find appropriate solutions to them.
Equitable access to countermeasures
Africa must not compromise on the ratification of international health pacts that guarantee fair technology transfer, intellectual property waivers, and robust regional manufacturing.
Countries must equally expand local production of laboratory diagnostic kits, vaccines and medical supplies as well as non-medical products. Such include gloves, personal protective equipment and masks.
This will reduce reliance on external donation and supply chains in and out of global crises.
Sustainable financing
The greater challenge for many African countries is the waste of available resources and spending on misplaced priorities.
To address this, governments must commit to sustained domestic investment in healthcare. At the same time they must use blended financing (involving both the public and private sectors) to close remaining gaps. Initiatives such as the African Epidemic Fund offer a practical model for building financial reserves for rapid, locally led responses. The fund, launched in 2025, is designed to mobilise funding to support preparedness and response efforts to combat public health threats on the continent. The African Epidemic Fund, though relatively new, must operate at the highest level of accountability. It must provide regular updates on contributions, projects supported and their impact on disease preparedness, prevention and control in Africa.
Sustained political attention
African leaders must keep pandemic preparedness high on the political agenda to ensure continuous resource allocation and accountability. The advocacy for preparedness must go beyond political campaign slogans. It must be driven by regional bodies like the African Union. Countries must then translate commitments into tangible national policies.
There can be no recess or holiday from pandemic preparedness.
African political leaders and elites, at the continental, national and sub-national levels, have crucial roles to play in achieving trusted community engagement and involvement for successful and reliable pandemic preparedness. Above all, there must be active community engagement and involvement.
Oyewale Tomori, Fellow, Nigerian Academy of Science
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
