Work-related COVID-19 infection prevention among health-care workers in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and prospects

Abstract

At present, no African country is spared of COVID-19 infection, with existing weak health systems, significant limitations are unsurprisingly encountered in response capacity to the pandemic. Health systems are stretched, leaving health-care workforce vulnerable to infections, yet not protected and motivated, but left to pay the highest price for the decades of neglect of public and occupational health services in many African countries. Healthy frontline health-care workers are pivotal to the success and sustenance of the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic, hence the need to urgently protect them. African governments need to take responsibility to prevent work-related COVID-19 infections among health-care workers. Beyond the current pandemic, African governments should elevate the right to health topmost in their policies and programs to improve people's lives, including health-care workforce.