Finally, priority should be given to community engagement. Engaged communities can be highly effective in detecting outbreaks and, as was demonstrated with Ebola, are a prerequisite for effective response. Yet too often, community engagement has been an afterthought — poorly researched, left until too late, and clumsily executed.
Building stronger public health systems takes political leadership, persistence, and patience, since the capacity takes time to create, and the benefits — avoidance of bad outcomes — are often invisible. Yet countries such as Uganda have demonstrated that even where funds are scarce, substantial improvements can be made.