TY - JOUR T1 - Rapid policy development for essential RMNCAH services in sub-Saharan Africa: what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic and what needs to happen going forward? JF - BMJ Global Health JO - BMJ Global Health DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006938 VL - 6 IS - 9 SP - e006938 AU - Peter Waiswa AU - Phillip Wanduru Y1 - 2021/09/01 UR - http://gh.bmj.com/content/6/9/e006938.abstract N2 - Summary boxThe rapidity with which policies were issued by countries in sub-Saharan Africa to support reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH) services in the COVID-19 pandemic is a positive development that could represent a new era in local policy making, that is more aligned with the sustainable development goals policy of self-reliance.These rapidly developed policies have also included selected changes to essential health services that could potentially be beneficial to maintain postpandemic. These potentially beneficial policy improvements include multimonth dispensing of medications and family planning methods and self-care.Policies to support RMNCAH during the COVID-19 pandemic should be adapted as evidence, technology, context, available resources and the situation evolves.The need for evolving policy response requires countries to have capacity for rapid policy development, and a good coordinating mechanism by WHO and other technical partners so that country policies are informed by international recommendations and evidence.Two potential approaches to rapid policy making in these evolving pandemic situations include technical experts at country level preparing ‘policy templates’, and standing multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral teams tasked with mobilising rapid policy response.In 2020, Africa had a lower incidence of COVID-19 infections and deaths per 100 000 population compared with many high-income counterparts.1 2 Various reasons were hypothesised to contribute to this phenomenon, including political commitment, prompt contact tracing, demographic pyramid, genetics among others.2 3 This story changed in mid-2021. Then, many countries that were thought to have ‘successfully’ suppressed COVID-19 infections were battling surging infections and deaths.For example, in Uganda, between July 2020 and May 2021, there were only 362 COVID-19 related deaths officially recorded. This completely changed in June 2021 when there were over 1500 deaths in single month.1 The deaths in 1 month were five-times more than those that occurred during the entire preceding pandemic period. … ER -