Sub-Saharan African emergency care systems

The current global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 has dramatically altered how we live our lives, how we conceptualise the risks and benefits of globalisation, and how we understand the fragility of health systems. The constant stream of news is filled with reports of health systems overwhelmed, flares of the virus in locations where it was previously thought contained and projections of worsening resource limitations that may have dire consequences for patients’ survival. Emergency centres have been highlighted as mission critical locations in response to this pandemic. In fact, emergency centres have become de facto intensive care units in the Americas, Europe and Asia, as they are often the only other safe location where critical care can be provided outside of overburdened intensive care units. As this crisis has starkly revealed, emergency care systems are the essential foundation to provide an effective response to any type of mass casualty event. During infectious disease outbreaks emergency care systems serve multiple critical roles, including immediate syndromic recognition of disease, isolation to protect patients and health care workers, and care for emergency conditions associated with the outbreak, such as respiratory failure and shock. Emergency care systems must also scale efforts to respond to further health crises that may arise as a result of the epidemic, including acute exacerbations of chronic disease.