Hayley Severance
Deputy Vice President, Global Biological Policy and Programs
Africa Health Security Index
Improving epidemic and pandemic preparedness and strengthening biosecurity in Africa.
Challenge
No country is fully prepared for future pandemic or epidemic threats. African nations face unique challenges and opportunities in building resilient health systems, sustaining investments and capacities, and strengthening health security governance.
Action
Work with African experts and international stakeholders to build an African Health Security Index to assess national capacities to prevent, detect, and respond to high-consequence biological threats.
Results
Enable leaders to measure, finance, and advance improvements in health security and create an evidence-based accountability framework to track progress toward better epidemic and pandemic preparedness in Africa.
Details
Project Staff
What is the AHS Index?
The Africa Health Security (AHS) Index is a comprehensive, independent assessment of epidemic and pandemic preparedness across Africa.
Why is it needed?
The world remains dangerously unprepared for the next biological threat. 2026 index findings are both a sign of progress and a call to action. The AHS Index reveals significant gaps in critical health infrastructure despite important recent progress in health security capacity.
African investment in health security is working, but more progress is needed. Africa’s health security capacity has improved since 2021 with gains across prevention, detection, and response. The average score for the continent rose from 32.4 to 41.5 out of 100. Progress is real, but critical and substantial gaps remain.
Leaders across the world continue to neglect investing in epidemic and pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, regardless of their income level. Political will and sustainable financial resources will be critical in building lasting capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to emerging biological threats.
What does the AHS Index do?
Created on the recommendation of African public health leaders, the AHS Index provides new data on health security targets across the continent, including new preparedness indicators at the intersection of health and climate security.
The AHS Index enables African leaders to track the impact of programs to improve health security and identify opportunities to advance epidemic and pandemic preparedness. The Index includes data from a broad set of health security indicators, building on the Global Health Security Index framework, and it includes a focused analysis of African priorities:
- Biosecurity and biosafety: preventing accidental and deliberate biological events
- Biosurveillance: detecting and reporting emerging outbreaks
- Medical countermeasure development and deployment: strengthening outbreak response
- Climate change: assessing impacts on health security
- Regional capacities and initiatives: augmenting national health security infrastructure
- Financing and spending commitments and institutions: supporting a sustainable and sovereign response
The AHS Index:
- Creates political accountability to incentivize governments to invest in pandemic preparedness capacity within their borders
- Provides data for donors and governments to make evidence-based decisions to prioritize resource allocation more effectively, maximizing the impact of investments
- Sets a standard for biosecurity and pandemic preparedness
The AHS Index Reference Group
The Africa Health Security Index Reference Group is a group of African experts providing strategic direction for the project, ensuring that it effectively serves the needs of African public health and health security leaders.
Partners
The AHS Index is developed by NTI | bio, the Brown University Pandemic Center, Economist Enterprise, and Science for Africa Foundation, in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), and University of Tunis El Manar (Tunis, Tunisia). Funding is provided by the Gates Foundation. Learn more about the full project team here.
2026
Tracking Health Security Progress and Building Resilience in Africa
The AHS Index is an objective, evidence-based tool that helps countries and organizations set priorities and identify where investments can have the greatest impact. As health threats become more complex and interconnected, maintaining momentum will require sustained investment, stronger partnerships, and continued political commitment.
Africa Making Progress on Health Security; Sustained Actions & Investment Are Essential
African countries are building stronger systems to advance health security and sovereignty. However, the scale and speed of rising health threats call for urgent action and increased investment.
Africa’s Health Security Capacity Has Improved, but No Country is Adequately Prepared and Biosecurity and Biosafety Remain Critically Low
New Africa Health Security Index reveals how rising threats and health emergencies, including Central Africa’s current Ebola outbreak, could erode progress
Past Event
Tracking Health Security Progress and Building Resilience in Africa
Webinar
|
3:30 – 5:00 pm EAT (8:30 am – 10:00 am ET)
NTI | bio Engages Global Leaders at GHS2026 in Kuala Lumpur
NTI | bio experts will take part in several GHS2026 sessions, including a preview of findings from the forthcoming Africa Health Security (AHS) Index and a timely discussion on strengthening health security partnerships amid declining resources.
Leading with Science and Evidence in a Time of Retreat
As global resources become more constrained, evidence-based tools that guide investments toward maximum impact are more important than ever. This World Health Day, the WHO urges the world to embrace evidence, support science-led solutions, and advance global cooperation to turn evidence into action.
The Next Crisis Won’t Wait: Why Pandemic Preparedness Is a Business Imperative
Global health security —the ability to protect against the negative impacts of disease outbreaks — is too important to be left solely to the public sector. Industry has a vital interest in helping countries better prepare for future epidemics and pandemics.
2025
What Buddy the Elf Can Teach Us About Global Health Security
You might not expect a man in yellow tights eating syrupy spaghetti to teach you about global health security—but Elf offers surprisingly helpful lessons to understand the importance of addressing biological threats before they become global pandemics.
Past Event
The Next Biological Shock
San Francisco, California J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
|
9:45AM PT
Smarter Health Financing for Self-Reliance and Resilience Across the African Continent
Amid a combination of economic slowdown, reductions in official development assistance, rising biological threats, and climate change’s disproportionate impact on Africa, leaders and experts call for data-driven tools to guide strategic health security investments.
From Agreement to Action: Strengthening Africa’s Health Security Through Data
The Pandemic Agreement is a historic step toward strengthening global systems to prevent, detect, and respond to epidemic and pandemic threats. Yet many low- and middle-income countries face significant political and technical challenges in ratifying and implementing the agreement.
NTI Statement in Support of WHO Pandemic Accord
NTI applauds today’s announcement that the International Negotiating Body of the World Health Organization (WHO) has reached a deal on the language of the Pandemic Accord. Pandemics continue to pose a global threat, and this proposed agreement is proof that the world can unify to reduce the most catastrophic risks.