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Interview: Stuffing, funding as next focuses for Africa's continental health agency

Xinhua, February 10, 2017 Adjust font size:

Stuffing and funding are the two focuses for the African Union (AU) to run the newly launched Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Africa's continent-wide public health agency, the outgoing AU Commissioner for Social Affairs has said.

In an interview with Xinhua, Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko emphasized that cooperation and support from member states and development partners are very important for the Africa CDC.

The pan-African bloc has been working on Africa CDC since the Abuja extraordinary summit in 2013, and the advent of Ebola crisis has put a lot of emphasis on the issue of having the agency, Kaloko recalled.

The AU Commission launched the Africa CDC on Jan. 31 on the margin of the 28th AU summit in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

The agency was launched to help African member states respond to public health emergencies, as the importance of public health is underlined by its impact on national, social and economic development, according to the AU.

The pan-African bloc has now the director for the Africa CDC, the structure, and established an emergency operation center to run on surveillance system for the whole continent, said Kaloko.

"What we did after that (the Ebola crisis) was to set up a multinational taskforce made of representatives of all members states of the African Union, relevant agencies and partners that deal with health on the continent, and also various centers like the American CDC in Atlanta, Chinese CDC, European CDC, put all these people together that was the first meeting we had on planning on the Africa CDC. So, from there, we decided that we are going to have a decentralized Africa Centers for Disease Control that is each regional will have collaboration center," said the commissioner.

Stating that epidemiologists and experts are already there with the Africa CDC, Kaloko said further stuffing and more funding would be the next immediate focus with the CDC.

He also stated that the pan-African bloc looks forward to technical and other forms of support from non-members and development partners.

"Very important in the immediate sense is the issue of funding. So, we are going to look at ways in which we are able to fund the institutions as much as we can. Our member states have pledged to assist with the funding. But, we are going to need a lot more funds, definitely, we need some assistance from our major partners," the commissioner added.

Five countries including Egypt, Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Gabon have already been identified to host the regional collaboration centers of the Africa CDC, which will work with the African CDC Coordinating Center in Addis Ababa, according to the AU official.

The Africa CDC will join the international networks of public health institutions to share information and improve surveillance of public health threats, the AU has said.

As an African-owned institution, the Africa CDC is uniquely positioned to help protect the health of the continent, it said. Enditem