By Maxwell Awumah
Ho, July 25, GNA – A new Africa Health Security (AHS) Index, released on July 22, 2026, against the backdrop of a devastating Ebola disease outbreak, reveals significant gaps in critical health infrastructure despite important progress in health security capacity in recent years.
The AHS Index spotlights how African governments and partner investments in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic had paid off.
It indicated that the continent was nearly 30 per cent more prepared than it was five years ago, yet there was an average score of only 41.5 out of 100, revealing gaps that could allow crises to become catastrophes at a time when threats and risk factors continued to escalate.
Developed by a coalition of African and global research organisations, public health and security experts, the AHS Index assessed all 54 African countries based on answers to 190 questions.
These questions benchmark health security alongside other factors critical to preventing, detecting, and responding to outbreaks, including the strength of each country’s health systems, commitment to global norms, and the local political and risk environment.
The Index was designed by the coalition to meet African priorities and equip leaders with evidence, to address current and future risks.
The Index findings showed that progress was real and broad-based, with 52 out of 54 countries showing improved scores by at least one point, noting that the continent-wide averages improved in all top-level Index categories except for the risk environment.
However, despite these gains, some underlying indicators declined.
Ms Judith Omumbo, the Head of partnerships and resource mobilisation for the Science for Africa Foundation, a Co-lead of the AHS Index, said “The AHS Index is a game changer for an exceptionally diverse continent with wide differences in national incomes, climate, governance, and social conditions.”
She said it measured our unique strengths and strategic opportunities and provided the evidence base for African controlled health investments and policy decisions.
“It can guide domestic policy priorities and international collaboration opportunities, ensuring that countries in Africa lead, rather than follow, in global health security initiatives,” she added.
The Index also found improvements in biosecurity and biosafety capacity across Africa, but capacity in those areas remained alarmingly low.
The average biosecurity score was 14.9, with the biosafety average being 18.2, and the dual-use research of concern average stood at 1.9 out of 100, noting also that while laboratory infrastructure were expanding, they were outpacing safety and security oversight mechanisms.
“The measurable increase in capacity is the result of dedication, hard work, and investment in the health security of Africa over recent years, but much more is needed. Substantial gaps remain that can mean the difference between a small outbreak and an international pandemic.
“Investments made today will determine Africa’s capacity to address the health threats of tomorrow,” Dr Wilmot James, a Senior adviser to the Brown University Pandemic Center and a former Member of Parliament and Shadow Minister of Health in South Africa said.
He stated that “Recent declines in overseas development assistance underlines the need for governments to prioritise resources and strengthen the systems that address health emergencies.”
Other findings included the growing Bio-surveillance capacity that 53 out of 54 countries, had increased bio-surveillance capacity, though progress varied by region.
Again, the Index report showed that although wastewater and environmental surveillance had expanded to 52 countries, with genomic sequencing capacity in 48 countries, programmes varied in maturity.
It noted that medical countermeasure development was outpacing deployment: Capacity for life-saving medical countermeasures (MCM) such as vaccines and therapeutics rose across all five regions.
However, countries had better capacities to develop MCM (average score: 56.5 out of 100) than to deploy them (20.7 out of 100) it indicated, adding that similarly, while 85 per cent of countries had an agency to approve new MCMs, only 22 per cent had public plans to handle supply surges during emergencies.
The Report also acknowledged the improving climate-related health security capacity with access to water and sanitation infrastructure, to better manage risks linked to climate change, indicating that countries had more capacity to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to zoonotic diseases, with increased legislation, surveillance, data sharing, and emergency response planning.
It further noted that though regional health security infrastructure was strengthening, it was uneven in response to regional capacity building efforts, and the number of countries meeting field epidemiologist staffing thresholds nearly doubled: “Fifty-two countries now have Emergency Operations Centres, and 36 have animal health emergency agreements. However, only eight countries are tracking dangerous pathogen facility locations.”
The Report pointed out that National health security financing commitments showed signs of strain, indicating that the average score dipped from 52.5 to 50.5 out of 100, and that eighteen countries no longer showed evidence of active financing commitments, although seven new countries did.
Ms Christine E. Wormuth, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, admitted that “African governments have made measurable progress in health security capacity, and the data show it,” citing the fact that “Growing biological risks and a challenging security environment expose countries to outbreaks, accidents, and deliberate threats.
She stressed that strengthening public health was both a national and regional security priority.
Based on the assessments, the report also highlights key actions that governments, multilateral organisations, regional entities, funders and the private sector could take, to ensure continued progress in the face of rising threats, and they included investments in research and preparedness, as well as biosecurity and biosafety resources and training.
It recommends establishing a global pandemic spending tracker with minimum benchmarks, expanding investment in emerging surveillance networks and early warning and detection systems, including wastewater and environmental surveillance, genomic surveillance and building medical countermeasure deployment capacities, to complement the push in manufacturing capabilities.
Again, it called for the development of a harmonised emergency, using an authorisation framework to expedite regulatory pathways for medical countermeasures, strengthen water and sanitation infrastructure to prevent disease transmission and address climate-related health pressures.
It called for the formalising of inter-country cooperation agreements to combat outbreaks, while publicly committing to financing pandemic preparedness through domestic resources, global commitments, and co-investment opportunities.
GNA
Edited by Christabel Addo
Reporter: Maxwell Awumah
Email: [email protected]