Strengthening the health systems response to COVID-19: policy brief: recommendations for the WHO European Region (‎1 April 2020)‎

Overview

The early experience in countries with large-scale community transmission (‎China, Iran, Italy and Spain)‎ shows that COVID-19 requires unprecedented mobilization of health systems. By acting urgently, countries that have not yet entered community transmission may have a narrow opportunity to slow transmission and prepare their health systems to mitigate the impact of the outbreak. This note summarizes recommendations to strengthen the health system response to COVID-19 in the WHO European Region, to break chains of transmission and to diagnose and treat cases while maintaining essential services. The 16 recommendations reflect the characteristics of COVID-19, existing evidence and experience-informed practices in health system organization and financing, and emergent practices in the response to COVID-19 within the Region and globally.