Over the last year, the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), worked with a consortium of public health institutions in Africa including the Africa Centre for Disease Control (Africa CDC), World Health Organization African Region (WHO AFRO) and WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (WHO EMRO), Western African Health Organization (WAHO), and The East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) on the Strengthening Public Mental Health in Africa in Response to Covid-19 (SPACE) programme to help integrate MHPSS into African countries’ emergency responses. They explored the extent to which MHPSS was included in the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic in African countries, and what the barriers and enablers are to MHPSS integration in the COVID-19 response.
