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Data sharing governance in sub-Saharan Africa during public health emergencies: Gaps and guidance
Dirk Brand1, Jerome A Singh2, Annelize G Nienaber McKay3,4
1School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Insights
Africa faces significant challenges in responding to health pandemics due to a lack of comprehensive epidemiologic data and analytical capacity. Improving data sharing and governance is crucial for effective public health decision-making across the continent.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Epidemiology
- Health Informatics
Background:
- Africa has a history of devastating health pandemics, including tuberculosis (TB), malaria, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), predating the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Effective pandemic response relies on high-quality, comprehensive data for policymaking and healthcare decisions.
- A critical challenge in Africa is the scarcity of curated epidemiologic data and the analytical capacity to quickly identify and understand emerging infectious diseases.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the challenges posed by data scarcity and fragmented governance frameworks in Sub-Saharan Africa for pandemic preparedness and response.
- To emphasize the importance of data access, sharing, and transfer for managing current and future health crises.
- To underscore the need for governance reforms to facilitate timely data sharing and decision-making.
Main Methods:
- The study reviews existing literature and expert knowledge on data management, privacy governance, and public health challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- It analyzes the impact of diverse regional data governance frameworks on cross-border data sharing.
- The research identifies ethical considerations and personal privacy issues related to public health data.
Main Results:
- Scarcity of large, well-curated epidemiologic data sets and limited analytical capacity hinder rapid response to infectious disease outbreaks in Africa.
- Cross-border data access and sharing are essential for effective pandemic management but are complicated by privacy concerns and inadequate governance.
- Sub-Saharan Africa exhibits varied data management and privacy frameworks, which impede crucial time-sensitive data exchange.
Conclusions:
- Urgent governance reforms are needed to facilitate effective data sharing and decision-making in response to evolving public health threats in Africa.
- Addressing data access, privacy, and ethical issues is paramount for strengthening pandemic preparedness and response mechanisms.
- Enhancing analytical capacity and establishing harmonized data governance are critical steps for improving continental health security.
Abstract:
While the COVID-19 pandemic has captured the attention of the global community since the end of 2019, deadly health pandemics are not new to Africa. Tuberculosis (TB), malaria and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) count amongst other serious diseases that have had a catastrophic impact on the African continent. Effective responses to such pandemics require high-quality, comprehensive data sets that can inform policymaking and enhance healthcare decision-making. While data is driving the information economy in the 21st century, the scarcity in Africa of carefully curated, large epidemiologic data sources and analytical capacity to rapidly identify and understand emerging infectious diseases poses a major challenge to mounting a time-sensitive response to unfolding pandemics. Data access, sharing and transfer between countries are crucial to effectively managing current and future health pandemics. Data access and sharing, however, raises questions about personal privacy, the adequacy of governance mechanisms to regulate cross-border data flows, and ethical issues relating to the collection and use of personal data in the interests of public health. Sub-Saharan Africa's most research-intensive countries are characterised by diverse data management and privacy governance frameworks. Such regional variance can impede time-sensitive data sharing and highlights the need for urgent governance reforms to facilitate effective decision-making in response to rapidly evolving public health threats.
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