Posted in Pandemic Preparedness Articles
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, 25 May 2022: Provision of safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) conditions is essential to protecting human health during all infectious disease outbreaks, including COVID-19. While it is part of the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005) to either sanitize or wash hands regularly, not all individuals and communities are able to meet these requirements because they either don’t have access to water or lack understanding on the need to do so. The risk of exposure to and the spread of infectious diseases remains high among such individuals and communities.
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Posted in Pandemic Preparedness Articles
Arusha, 27 December 2021: On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic. Almost two years since, there have been over 5 million deaths globally, great disruption to trade and devastating impacts on the lives and livelihoods of communities across the world.
The initial response to the outbreak was slow or lacking altogether in many parts of the world. Numerous systems in place were not prepared or did not provide for swift response and mitigation measures. Many perceived the outbreak singularly as a health issue and thus, the response was conducted as such, locking out key stakeholders from sectors such as agriculture, education, trade, tourism and many more, all which were also greatly slammed by repercussions of the outbreak.
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Posted in Pandemic Preparedness Articles
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 23 November 2021. A training of trainers (ToT) programme targeting border posts staff on COVID-19 preparedness and response was very beneficial. This is the testimony of participants of the training when they met a delegation of German officials at Namanga on the Kenya and Tanzania border recently. The 2-day trainings were offered over a period of 12 weeks from September 2020.
The visiting officials included Claudia Imwolde-Kraemer from the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ); Jennifer Wörl and Dr. Ralf Orlik, German Development Bank (KfW), and Johannes Sperrfechter from the German Embassy in Tanzania. They talked to Peter Ndichu and Frank Okwema who are beneficiaries of the ToT that aimed at enhancing the capacity of staff for infection prevention and for communicating the COVID-related risks to travellers that include thousands of EAC citizens and tourists.
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Posted in Pandemic Preparedness Articles
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, 9th November 2021: National validation meetings for the EAC Regional One Health Strategy started yesterday with Tanzania being the first to convene the key forum among the six EAC Partner States. The meeting was opened by Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, Kaspar Mmuya.
“The One Health approach has been recognized as a major element of disease control and prevention strategies as it emphasizes the relatedness of human, animal, plant and environmental health, and the importance of transdisciplinary efforts,” Mmuya said in his opening speech.
He thanked all key players who took part in the development of the Strategy and specifically thanked the German Government and GIZ in close collaboration with the EAC Secretariat for their technical and financial support.
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