ECOWAS forms disease surveillance network
A network to strengthen disease surveillance and give prompt responses to epidemics in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been launched in Accra.
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The network, the West African Network for Infectious Disease Surveillance (WANIDS), is to foster cooperation among member countries for the early detection and control of infectious diseases.
It will be an integrated regional platform for the collection and sharing of health information for early infectious disease detection, response and control and focus on building the capacity of member countries in that regard.
The network was launched at the end of a three-day stakeholder capacity-building workshop in Accra to ensure greater co-operation for the implementation of the tenets of WANIDS.
The workshop brought together representatives from ECOWAS countries, the West African Health Organisation (WAHO), the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank, the Skoll Global Threats Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Why WANIDS
The idea for WANIDS was necessitated by a research conducted by ECOWAS community which established that the outbreak and the resurgence of epidemic diseases in the West African sub-region were the consequences of a weak health system and fragile mechanisms for disease surveillance and prevention in most member countries.
The research also identified that infrastructure, skilled human resource and the capacity of laboratory services were inadequate to deal with the outbreak and the resurgence of epidemic diseases in the sub-region.
In response to the findings, the 47th Conference of the Heads of ECOWAS held in May 2015 mandated WAHO to establish a regional structure for epidemic prevention and control body which was named the ECOWAS Regional Centre for Disease Surveillance and Control (ECOWAS-RCDSC).
The establishment of the network was facilitated by WAHO and comprised all the 15 ECOWAS countries.
It was developed in partnership with the Connecting Organisation for Regional Disease Surveillance (CORDS), with financial and technical support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Skoll Global Threats Fund.
Launching
Launching WANIDS in Accra last Friday, the Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, Dr Badu Sarkodie, said diseases would continue to emerge and re-emerge and, therefore, member countries had the responsibility to put in place robust preventive and management systems to protect human lives.
“It will be a big failure to detect early and not respond promptly and appropriately, which has become obvious that most member countries do not have the capacity to do so,” he said.
Dr Sarkodie commended ECOWAS for the initiative to foster an integrated approach for effective response to public health emergencies in the sub-region.