Biosafety involves the implementation of containment principles, technologies and practices to prevent unintentional exposure to biological agents. Biosecurity involves the protection, control and accountability of biological materials and information related to these materials and dualuse research,... to prevent their unauthorized access, loss, theft, misuse, diversion or intentional release.
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Event-based surveillance (EBS) is defined as the organized collection, monitoring, assessment and interpretation of mainly unstructured ad hoc information regarding health events or risks, which may represent an acute risk to health. Both indicator-based and event-based surveillance components serve... the early warning and response (EWAR) function of the public health surveillance system. The Framework for Event-based Surveillance offers guidance to public health practitioners seeking to implement EBS at each administrative level in healthier countries.
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17 February 2021
During the second joint meeting of African ministers responsible for health, ICT and transport on the rollout of the Africa Against COVID-19: Saving Lives, Economies and Livelihoods campaign, a call was made to African countries to work together towards harmonizing travel entry and... exit requirements, and to increase mutual recognition and cross-border information exchange for enhanced surveillance
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A Estratégia Conjunta Continental Africana para a COVID-19 é sustentada pela necessidade de limitar a transmissão, prevenir mortes e reduzir os danos associados. A participação das nações africanas em ensaios clínicos é um passo essencial para garantir que sejam gerados dados suficientes so...bre a segurança e eficácia dos candidatos a vacinas mais promissores entre as populações da região.
Embora a actual actividade de ensaios clínicos COVID-19 no continente seja limitada, a África tem uma experiência e capacidades substanciais para conduzir ensaios clínicos de vacinas preventivas numa série de doenças, e muitas organizações no continente estão a trabalhar incansavelmente para ajudar a preparar ensaios adicionais sobre potenciais vacinas COVID-19.
Disponível em inglês, francês e português
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Many African countries were amongst the most rapid to respond to the emerging threat of COVID-19, implementing large-scale interventions at very early stages of their epidemic. As demonstrated in this document using very simple models, this rapid mobilization and timeliness of implementing control m...easures is likely to be an important determinant of their success. Indeed, as these measures were relaxed, subsequent waves of disease have been observed in many countries including South Africa, Kenya, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where such waves have severely impacted the health system by straining the supply of oxygen and ICU beds and inflicting a heavy toll on healthcare workers, often necessitating the re-imposition of control measures.
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27 May 2021
This is a document to support the use of pulse oximeter for assessment of suspected and confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the community.
It is a well-known fact that Covid-19 can present as “happy hypoxia” with minimum symptoms of severe respiratory distress despite significant low ox...ygen levels in the blood. The use of pulse oximeter for clinical assessment significantly augments decision making, save lives and provide high quality care. It allows for early detection of patients with hypoxia requiring either close monitoring in the community or timely referral for hospital care.
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This policy brief draws from the latest evidence on the impact of vaccination program start date and vaccine rollout rates on health benefits. The objective is to support policymakers on decisions to procure COVID-19 vaccines and roll out vaccination programmes in countries, especially those
where ...large proportions of the population remain unvaccinated.
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Africa CDC Institute of Pathogen Genomics (IPG) was launched in November 2019 and operates under the Division of Laboratory Systems and Networks.
IPG coordinate the implementation of molecular diagnostics, pathogen genomics and bioinformatics in National Public Health Institutions (NPHIs) and/or Re...fe-
-rence Laboratories (NRLs) across Africa.
Africa CDC and APHF are coordinating a continental initiative to maximize the benefits of molecular approaches and pathogen genomics for more effective
outbreak preparedness, prevention, response, and for the control and elimination of endemic diseases in Africa. One of Africa CDC’s flagship initiative is the Africa
Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Africa PGI), a partnership that aims to strengthen laboratory systems and enhance genomic surveillance by equipping the continent’s
public health institutions with the tools, training, and data infrastructure.
About the Project
In 2023, 166 outbreaks and public health events were reported in Africa. This calls for a resilient laboratory systems for timely detection and reporting of current and future outbreaks. This project aims to scale up molecular diagnostic and genomic sequencing-based detection and characterization of outbreaks.
Africa CDC is working with Member States to develop guidance, diagnostic algorithm, training and capacity building to enable outbreak detection, and reporting to inform public health response.
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The application of digital health technology is growing at a rapid rate in Africa, with the goals of improving the delivery of healthcare services and more effectively reaching out to remote and underserved communities. The lack of enabling guidelines and standards across the continent, on the other... hand, makes it difficult to share data in a meaningful way across the continent.
Considering this, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) established a task force of 24 members to provide expertise and guidance in the development of AU HIE guidelines and standards. Members of the task force were subject matter experts working in Africa and internationally on the collection, analysis, and exchange of health information. Some of these experts had been involved in previous consultations on defining Africa CDC’s health information systems strategy. A chairperson, co-chairperson, and secretary were elected to engage the task force members in different technical working groups.
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The application of digital health technology is growing at a rapid rate in Africa, with the goals of improving the delivery of healthcare services and more effectively reaching out to remote and underserved communities. The lack of enabling guidelines and standards across the continent, on the other... hand, makes it difficult to share data in a meaningful way across the continent.
Considering this, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) established a task force of 24 members to provide expertise and guidance in the development of AU HIE guidelines and standards. Members of the task force were subject matter experts working in Africa and internationally on the collection, analysis, and exchange of health information. Some of these experts had been involved in previous consultations on defining Africa CDC’s health information systems strategy. A chairperson, co-chairperson, and secretary were elected to engage the task force members in different technical working groups.
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For General Healthcare Settings in West Africa
Since the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) in 2015, there has been rapidly growing awareness among many African countries that they need to be doing more to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The Africa Centres fo...r Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was officially inaugurated in January 2017 and will support countries commencing surveillance for serious infectious disease threats in Africa, including resistance. Review of the recent WHO GLASS report suggests that, while certain nations do have some surveillance systems in place, very few countries in Africa currently conduct effective routine surveillance.
African Journal of Laboratory MedicineISSN: (Online) 2225-2010, (Print) 2225-2002
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