BEIJING: China’s National Disease Control and Prevention Administration said it has sent two public health experts to Uganda to join a newly established international coordination platform supporting the response to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.
The platform, jointly established by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, is based at the Infectious Diseases Institute at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Known as the Joint Africa CDC-WHO AFRO Continental Incident Management Support Team, the platform became fully operational on June 29.
The two experts, both from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, had participated in the Ebola response in Sierra Leone a decade ago. Invited by the platform’s organizers, they departed from Beijing for Uganda around midnight on Wednesday. China has already dispatched two teams of medical specialists to support the Ebola response in the DRC, with a total of 10 experts specializing in epidemiology, laboratory testing and clinical treatment.
As of Saturday, the Democratic Republic of the Congo had reported 1,926 confirmed Ebola cases, including 702 deaths. The outbreak was declared on May 15 and has since spread to two additional areas, affecting five regions. Uganda had reported 20 confirmed cases and one related death as of Monday, according to the latest data.
“The platform is structured around 14 technical pillars, including coordination and governance, surveillance, laboratory work, community engagement, infection prevention and control, case management, logistics and supplies, among others,” said An Zhijie, a public health expert from the China CDC and one of the two mission members.
An will serve in the coordination and governance pillar, where he will track the epidemiological situation, analyze transmission risks and the effectiveness of control measures across different regions, assess the risk of cross-border transmission and facilitate information sharing. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
