Case study: Tackling Covid-19

key publications focused on practically helping the districts of Sierra Leone country-wide, building capacity on the ground and identifying and solving single points of failure.

The work could have wider implications for the entire continent too. Many African nations could experience added complications in their Covid-19 response planning, as a change in the weather could bring natural disaster events such as flooding and monsoons, which could further hamper their efforts to curb the spread of the virus.

The team worked particularly closely with the government of Sierra Leone, having established a strong relationship when advising them on managing the national response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in the country.

A BUDMC team is working with the Department of Disaster Management in the Office of National Security (ONS) and Freetown City Council (FCC) in the AFRICAB (Driving African Capacity Building in Disaster Management) project.

Funded by the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), BUDMC is helping Sierra Leone’s districts to handle both Covid-19 and the challenges of the rainy season. In particular, the BUDMC – through AFRICAB – is co-producing

BU's Professor Lee Miles, who leads the BUDMC team, explains further: "We are really seeking to help them build resilience around handling combined scenarios that pose real challenges. For example, the capital, Freetown, floods almost every year. The standard response is to move people impacted by the flooding to the safety of a large stadium, or a hall or school. However, placing people out of harm's way in large, robust locations poses new challenges for containing Covid-19.

"We're helping them think through how they plan for these challenging combinations of eventualities, and supporting them in making decisions that may save lives both now and in the future."