Strengthening Pandemic Preparedness in the Eastern, Central and Southern Africa Health Community Project

closed

The project aims to "support participating countries in Eastern and Southern Africa to improve preparedness capacity for public health emergencies." The proposed activities have been prioritized based on gaps identified in the JEE scores, and fall into three broad areas, namely: (i) strengthening surveillance systems; (ii) preparing for health emergencies; and (iii) enhancing health systems, while promoting innovations and knowledge sharing and use of digital technology. The project will support capacity building activities in the countries and will not support direct service delivery nor cover civil works or procure medical equipment. Under Component 1 ("Strengthening surveillance systems in project countries"), activities include rolling out the third edition of the IDRS strategy (2019) with a focus on establishing events-based surveillance (EBS) systems; enhancing point of entry disease surveillance capacities, and expanding cross border disease surveillance; building capacity for laboratory-based disease surveillance; expanding use of electronic platforms for sharing surveillance data; and improving antimicrobial surveillance and stewardship for combatting AMR. Under Component 2 ("Support countries to prepare for health emergencies"), activities include mapping priority public health risks and vulnerabilities that can lead to emergencies; supporting preparation of multi-hazard public health emergency preparedness and response plans or implementation of priority activities in countries that have these plans; developing a unique annual JEE regional peer review audit mechanism and conducting annual cross-country reviews to support countries to track progress; applying the WHO COVID-19 Intra-Action Review to support countries to assess their COVID-19 responses; and conducting One Health simulation exercises at select cross border areas to test the plans. Under Component 3 ("Strengthen health systems and innovations"), activities include expanding online e-learning programs to strengthen surveillance and preparedness; facilitating cross-country learning and knowledge sharing on preparedness; and applying digital innovations.