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Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Health Reporter
Partnerships between African Union member states and other relevant stakeholders to combat public health issues remain a key strategy to mitigating challenges facing the African continent today.

As Zimbabwe joins the rest of the continent in commemorating Africa Day today, most countries on the continent are still struggling to strengthen and improve their health systems to cater for the needs of their growing populations while also raising capacities in disease surveillance, diagnostics and preparedness.

The continent is currently grappling with Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and there have been other outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, Lassa fever, diarrhoea and chikungunya in different part of the continent.
But despite these challenges all hope is not lost.

“All these have many negative effects on the lives of Africans, but the truth is that they are challenges that can be overcome if we use the right approaches and take the right actions and this is why Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) was established.
“The African Union wants to see a healthy Africa, where Member States can deal with these disease threats and ensure good health for everyone on the continent,” said Africa CDC head of Policy, Health, Diplomacy and Communication Dr Benjamin Djoudalbaye.

He said while the continent was faced with these multiple challenges, collaborative efforts between member states, the research and development community, experts, the private sector, civil society organisations and healthcare workers to discuss and take action on public health issues in Africa remain a key strategy.

He said in that light, since its establishment in January 2017, Africa CDC has created forums for Member States to discuss their priorities in accordance with the International Health Regulations (IHR), the Sustainable Development Agenda of the United Nations and Agenda 2063 of the African Union.

Dr Djoudalbaye said many issues have come to the fore from these discussions and the AU was working with different partners to address these issues.

“For example, early this month we held a meeting to launch a biosafety and biosecurity initiative for Africa, which will help protect Africa against the accidental or intentional release of dangerous pathogens.

“We are working with Member States to strengthen control of antimicrobial resistance, we are mapping laboratories across the continent and helping Member States to develop national laboratory action plans.

“We started an initiative called the Africa CDC Institute for Workforce Development (IWD), which will help build public health workforce capacity through the provision of formal training to different cadres of healthcare workers in the continent.

“This is different from the training programmes we are organising for representatives of Member States at the regional and country levels.

“There are a whole lot of initiatives going on at the same time to make Africa a healthy place to live,” said Dr Djoudalbaye.
He said the political decision to divide the continent into regions has also reaped some benefits in tackling common challenges affecting countries.

“With the regional approach we can bring countries together to discuss common solutions to the common health challenges facing them.

“It has great potential to enhance networking, learning and exchange of ideas and experience.”
Africa CDC has established regional collaborating centres (RCCs) in all the five regions of the continent.
The Southern African RCC is in Zambia.

Southern African RCC focal person Ms Mazyanga Mazaba told journalists that all 55 AU member states were expected to establish National Public Health Institutions (NPHI) by 2023.

Africa CDC also established the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) platform in Southern Africa to improve data and information-sharing in real time, which has facilitated timely regional preparedness and response.

Countries in Southern Africa use this platform for regular discussions about outbreak preparedness and to leverage expertise in the region to support response efforts.

The ECHO platform facilitated regional communication during the 2017-2018 listeriosis outbreak in South Africa.
In 2018, during outbreaks of cholera in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, SA-RCC facilitated regional capacity to respond to the outbreaks.

Although the continent has not yet attained the superior health standards in other continent, it is definitely taking steps in the right direction.