Tanzania needs to strengthen its ability to detect and respond to health emergencies at community level, with local authorities and frontline health workers playing a bigger role in preventing outbreaks from escalating into national crises.
The call was made on Thursday by the Ministry of Health’s Director of Emergency and Disaster Management, Dr Erasto Sylvanus, who said early response should begin where health threats first emerge—within families and communities.
Speaking at the Second International Primary Health Care Conference (IPHCC2026), Dr Sylvanus said Africa did not lack policies and strategies for dealing with health emergencies, but faced challenges in translating those plans into effective action at the local level.
“We need to shift preparedness from national and regional levels to community-level preparedness. An emergency starts with one person, a family or a village before it becomes a nationwide problem,” he said.
He said every local government authority should develop a Health Risk Profile showing the health hazards and outbreaks most likely to affect its area.
The profiles should also identify periods when particular risks are likely to occur and assess the capacity of local authorities and health facilities to detect, report and respond to emergencies.
Dr Sylvanus said strengthening such systems would allow authorities to act earlier, potentially containing outbreaks before they spread and place greater pressure on the health system.
He also called for health facilities and frontline health workers to be integrated more closely into early-warning systems, saying they were often among the first to detect unusual health events.
Communities, he added, should be equipped with the knowledge to recognise warning signs and report them promptly to health authorities.
The approach would help shift emergency preparedness from being largely a national responsibility to a shared system involving communities, local governments, health workers and national authorities.
Dr Sylvanus said early detection and timely reporting were critical to limiting the impact of health emergencies and protecting communities from preventable deaths and disruptions to essential health services.