Africa CDC and IFRC ramp up COVID-19 response

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) have launched a new collaboration to strengthen community resilience and response to public health emergencies at the community level. The two institutions have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to ramp up pandemic response including testing support to countries; community mobilization; advocacy and scaling up of contact tracing. In addition to COVID-19, the collaboration includes other areas of public health. Africa CDC and IFRC will strengthen investments in locally-led action for prevention and response purposes while working with governments to ensure they intensify efforts to roll out the COVID-19 vaccination. Additionally, Africa CDC and IFRC will scale up advocacy against vaccine wastage. This new initiative comes at a time Africa continues to face major vaccine shortages, amid a high level of community transmission in countries such as Botswana, Burundi, Eswatini, Cabo Verde, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.