Cape Town - Eight southern African country representatives have converged on Cape Town for a week-long meeting to enhance emergency responses and preparedness for communicable diseases.
Recognising population movement and the impact it has on the spread of communicable diseases, a “Strengthening Cross-border Collaboration and Information-Sharing regional meeting” is taking place from September 12 to 16 at Le Franschhoek Hotel and Spa, Cape Town, facilitated by the Health Systems Trust.
Countries participating are Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and will include government representatives from health ministries, national public health institutes, immigration, veterinary and animal services, the Consul General of the US in Cape Town, Southern African Development Community (SADC) representatives, and the World Health Organisation.
Health Systems Trust communication engagement lead Lunga Memela said participating countries and key regional agencies would present and exchange ideas around defining expectations for a protocol or tool for sharing border health and mobility-related surveillance data for priority communicable diseases; enhancing operational strategies for cross-border collaboration; and developing a comprehensive report to highlight best practices for strengthening border health systems across the region.
“This is the final regional meeting following a regional meeting in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, in June, and a series of multi-country border health trainings that addressed gaps identified in border health systems by the participating countries.
“These priority areas for capacity building included point of entry preparedness and response strengthening, understanding population mobility, and strengthening of cross-border public health information sharing and co-ordination,” said Memela.
National Health Department spokesperson Foster Mohale said the meeting would help strengthen a co-ordinated and integrated regional response to public health risks that arose as a result of international travel.
“Learning from the lessons provided by the Covid-19 pandemic, the department wishes to highlight the importance of aligning cross-border surveillance strategies for co-ordinated public health surveillance, communication, preparedness and response among the countries,” Mohale said.
Countries have only now moved to a post-Covid-19 situation, with concerns around foot-and-mouth disease and monkeypox.
Last week, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said there had been five unlinked confirmed cases of monkeypox reported in South Africa, with no deaths.