East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 1st November, 2024: For the first time, the East African Community (EAC) is operationalising its Rapidly Deployable Expert (RDE) Pool in response to an international public health emergency due to the spreading Mpox virus disease outbreak. EAC Partner States such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of Burundi are particularly affected, with the DRC reporting over 7,000 confirmed cases by October 2024, around 40% of them children under 15.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 4th October, 2024: The East African Community (EAC) Secretariat has called for a swift and coordinated regional response to contain the ongoing Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) outbreak declared in Rwanda. The outbreak poses a serious threat to regional health security and requires urgent action from all EAC Partner States to prevent its spread across borders.
On the 27th September 2024 Rwanda’s Ministry of Health declared the Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) outbreak and as of 30th September, 2024 there were 29 confirmed cases and 10 deaths with more than 297 contacts under close monitoring and healthcare workers have been disproportionately affected. The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised concerns about the potential regional spread of the disease due to confirmed cases in districts near the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda, and Tanzania.
… project has reached over 5 million people living in border communities
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 31st July, 2024: The East African Community (EAC) together with International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), have announced the successful conclusion of the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Project in the region.
The US$2.5 million WASH project started in 2021 and was aimed at strengthening the capacity of EAC Partner States to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases using hygiene measures, risk communication and community sensitisation.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 29th July, 2024:The East African Community (EAC) Secretariat has called on EAC Partner States to educate their citizens on how to protect themselves and prevent the spread of Mpox (Monkeypox).
This follows reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) that Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are experiencing an outbreak of the viral Mpox disease.
We are pleased to announce the opening of applications for the RCE-VIHSCM Call for Masters Studies for the academic year 2024-2025. This opportunity is designed for aspiring professionals seeking advanced expertise in the fields of Health Supply Chain Management and Pharmaceutical Analysis and Quality Assurance.
East African Community, Arusha, Tanzania, 18th July, 2024: The East African Community (EAC) Secretariat has partnered with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in an effort to enhance cross-border health security and responses to disease outbreaks in the region.
The partnership will play a critical role in addressing the negative impact of health security issues and disease outbreaks in border areas. The East African region, which is home to more than 300 million people, has been affected by cross-border health security issues and disease outbreaks such as Cholera, Ebola, and the COVID-19 pandemic over the last few years, which have led to the complete breakdown of public health systems in some countries or health systems being completely overwhelmed and unable to cope, among other negative effects.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 20th June, 2024: The EAC table-top simulation exercise (TTX) organized by the EAC Secretariat together with Partner States and other technical partners has successful tested the activation of the recently established regional rapidly deployable expert pool today in Nairobi, Kenya.
The expert pool has been set up since 2020 based on the lessons learnt from the Ebola outbreak in 2014/15 in West Africa as well as other infectious disease outbreaks in the EAC to ensure a timely regional response to disease outbreaks working with regional experts.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 7th May , 2024: The 24th Ordinary Meeting of the EAC Sectoral Council of Ministers of Health held on 3rd May, 2024 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania approved the 6-year EAC Cross-Border Health Advocacy and Communication Strategy (2024-2030) aimed at facilitating faster domestication and implementation of health directives, policies and programmes by enhancing the effectiveness of communication between the EAC Secretariat and Partner States.
The strategy is expected to play a critical role in increasing the level of advocacy and communication, and in promoting visibility and rallying the commitment of policy and decision makers at the Partner States’ level to implement cross border health programmes.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 26th January,2024: EAC Ministers in charge of Health have endorsed a regional policy framework aimed at promoting antibiotics production and a collaborative mechanism for information exchange in the production and supply of antibiotics across the region.
The 44th EAC Ordinary Council of Ministers endorsed this framework following multistakeholder consultations at the national and regional level as well as sensitization meetings with senior officials including Permanent Secretaries of Ministries responsible for health and industry. The project engaged over 300 stakeholders from both public and private sectors across the region.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 21st December, 2023: The East African Community (EAC) Secretary GeneralHon (Dr). Peter Mathuki has said that strong digital systems are the key to successful health programmes in the region as the world becomes more technologically advanced.
Dr. Mathuki said that to fully realise the benefits of the digital transformation, it is essential for EAC Partner States to establish robust and effective governance frameworks for the health data that is being shared in order to manage risks and safeguard citizens’ rights.
