The two days training which attracted academic staff from all Njala university campuses was held at the MIB Entertainment Complex, along Koribondo highway, in Bo.

In his opening statement, one of the lead facilitators from the research team, Professor Bashiru Koroma described the contributions of London School of Tropical Medicine, as a great capacity building for his university staff.

He said funding from the Medical Research Centre in the United Kingdom had helped the project to explore a range of factors, including the extent to which respondents were informed about local concerns, perceptions of emergency response systems and whether external interventions made the Country’s Health System less resilient.

The lead facilitator from the LSHTM, Professor Susannah Mayhew who also doubled as a Professor of Policy Systems and Reproductive Health Anthropology stated that the workshop aimed at strengthening the country’s health sector, after its lapses had been exposed by the Ebola epidemic. She further explained that they absolutely focused on understanding impact of international responses and how they could improve data on local response systems, as well as rapid emergency response to outbreaks.

Co-facilitator, Dina Balabanova, Associate Professor of Health System/Policy from the Department of Global Health and Development, Faculty of Public Health and Policy, at LSHTM, recounted on the importance of health systems. Balabanova added that the goal of every health system globally is to improve health conditions. She highlighted the six pillars of a health system which included; Service Delivery, Heath Workforce, Information, Medical Products, Vaccines and Technologies, Financing and Leadership/Governance.

Staff of the university thanked the visiting team for such a wonderful knowledge impacted on them and they promised faithfully, to further cascade the knowledge gained to other staff members, as well as the general students’ populace.