EAC needs to prepare for disease outbreaks
Arusha. The East African Community (EAC) has been urged to prepare adequately in the wake of major disease outbreaks.
The regional pandemic preparedness should be modelled on One Health approach, a multi-disciplinary collaborative way of addressing the global health challenges.
The advice was made in Nairobi early this week by Dr. Irene Lukassowitz, the GIZ-EAC manager for pandemic preparedness (PanPrep) during a
Stakeholders' meeting on health crisis communication.
The German medical expert coordinates the GIZ-supported project which aims at strengthening the EAC secretariat in its regional pandemic preparedness.
Although saved from major disease outbreaks that hit various parts of Africa in recent years, EAC has lately taken stringent measures to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola into the region.
Dr Lukassowitz emphasized One Health initiative approach in tackling the major epidemics was best suited to the region given its multi-disciplinary nature.
The Nairobi meeting for Risk and Crisis Communications (RCC) on both communicable and non-communicable diseases was organized by the EAC secretariat and GIZ, the German development aid agency.
It is aimed to broaden awareness of health experts involved in risk and crisis communication in the EAC region and introduce the concept through One Health model.
"We want to enable the participants to communicate better whenever there are outbreaks that affect both human beings and animals", said Dr. Stanley Sonoiya, the EAC principal health officer according to a dispatch to The Citizen.
He said although the medical experts have technical skills to tackle the diseases, there was a missing gap in terms of communication between them and the public at large.
