Community focused and evidence informed disease outbreak response: Sharing experiences from Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America

We explore how the planetary crisis and recurrence of disease outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America that require communities to be adaptable and resilient. Diseases such as cholera are occurring with increasing frequency and lasting for longer periods of time as presented by the case studies from Somalia and Mozambique and dengue in Latin America. While highly infectious hemorrhagic fever diseases such as Marburg are threatening the existing fragile health system in countries like Tanzania. We end the panel taking a broader view of disease outbreaks across the two continents to not only be vigilant of routine disease threats but to invest in community level surveillance, routine preventive practices, addressing gender dynamics, reliance on positive deviant approaches and technology-driven solutions for risk communication and community engagement to be part of a systems approach to be ready for new threats.