African Risk Capacity, Africa CDC Sign Partnership Agreement on Disease Control

The African Risk Capacity (ARC) and the Africa Centre for Disease Control (Africa CDC) have signed a partnership agreement to establish a collaborative framework to help African Union-member states strengthen preparedness and emergency response against infectious diseases of epidemic nature.

ARC and Africa CDC have been working together, in collaboration with other stakeholders, one establishing the “Africa Epidemic Preparedness Index” which is an innovative project for strengthening outbreak preparedness assessment within the framework of the International Health Regulation (IHR 2005) compliance.

“This agreement is in line with our ongoing strategic and technical collaboration to provide AU-member states with an array of risk management tools, including early warning, contingency planning, and alternative financing options against infectious diseases,” said ASG Mohamed Beavogui, the Director-General of ARC.

“The next steps will be to explore how quickly we can assist governments to begin strengthening capacities for risk reduction and mitigation before the next outbreak. Particularly, to encourage prioritisation of investments in emergency preparedness and response plans for effective recovery from public health events,” he concluded.

The Outbreaks and Epidemics (O&E) insurance programme of the African Risk Capacity was born in the wake of the devastating 2014 West African Ebola crisis. The lessons from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, revealed that, in addition to weaknesses in health systems, slow unpredictable funding was a major contributing factor to the inability of the Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to rapidly respond to the initial outbreaks.