February 10, 2025

East Africa Member States Resolve to Strengthen Public HealthCare Systems Amid New Outbreaks

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By The COAST Team

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com

East Africa member states have resolved to strengthen public health systems to counter disease outbreaks and pandemics.

During the recently concluded East Africa regional Global Health security Summit 2025, representatives of the members states agreed to enhance the resilience of the continent’s public health systems through sustainable funding, technology adoption, improved surveillance and community engagement.

This is amid the  recurrence of infectious diseases such as ebola and monkeypox in some parts of Africa which remains vulnerable to disease outbreaks that are being fueled by climate change, pollution, and unregulated human mobility across borders.

And with the challenge of limited access to diagnostics and essential medicine the resolution from the meeting seems to vouch for a solid regional fund kitty that can be used to respond to immediate pandemic and disease emergencies by member states.

The summit that was convened by Kenya’s Ministry of Health and other partners sought  to chart a new pathway for enhancing preparedness and response to pandemics in the region.

Delegates from governments, academia, civil society, donors, industry and regional blocs attending the three-day forum resolved to boost biosecurity, advance health equity, and ramp up the adoption of technologies and innovations in the health sector.

According to Mwinyi Mselem, a representative from Zanzibar health ministry, challenges like the escalation of war in Goma, region East of DRC, are among the emerging challenges to enhancing health stability in the region.

“The fighting in Goma where movement of doctors may be affected is definitely will affect health delivery because of the insecurity. This are new challenges that we are considering even as we put a lot of efforts to strengthen our health and security systems,” he said.

The situation, according to Sultan Matendechero, Kenya’s health deputy director general, said diseases move easily when families from affected war zones move to camps without proper strategies.

“We know refugees affected by the war may end up in refugee camps. This definitely may play out as a breeding area for transmutable diseases, so it’s a matter that we are following keenly as a region, because DRC is a member of the east Africa region,” he said.

Emmanuel Nzai, Jumuiya ya Kaunti za Pwani chief executive officer, reiterated on the need to have the development of contingency funds for prompt and effective response to emergencies in the region.

“Pandemics outbreaks are a disruption to economies,and we know what happened with COVID -19, so it’s upon us to stay prepared by ensuring that we support our local health systems by empowering service providers to be proactive enough incase of pandemics,” he said.

Kenyan President William Ruto, through a speech read on his behalf by health cabinet secretary Deborah Barasa, said that African nations have a collective duty to revamp their health systems and ensure they were capable of responding to outbreaks that were transboundary.

The inaugural EA region Global Health Security Summit 2025 ran under the theme of ‘Securing Health and Prosperity, One Community at a Time’, thus, underscoring the urgency to improve the continent’s ability to detect, respond and manage health emergencies.

Abdourahmane Diallo, the World Health Organization representative in Kenya, said that robust community-based surveillance combined with partnerships, innovations and forward-looking policies are pivotal to enhancing Africa’s public health security.

He stressed that mobilising resources from the domestic private sector was key to tackling funding gaps in the continent’s health sector, occasioned by shrinking external support.

Raji Tajudeen, acting deputy director-general at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said that political goodwill, innovative financing, reskilling the health workforce and streamlining the supply chains was crucial for success.

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