Public Health Emergency Management Fellowship Provides Real-life Immersion
Two cohorts of Public Health Emergency Management Fellows have so far been released by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) across the continent. These 27 fellows, consisting of eight from Cohort 1 and nineteen from Cohort 2, have the mandate to build a robust workforce capable of leading Africa’s public health emergency preparedness and response efforts. Africa CDC, through its Public […]
Rallying Call for Fair Access to Relevant AMR Countermeasures for Africa
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) continues to escalate into one of the most pressing global health threats of our time. In response, Africa CDC convened the first-ever continental meeting on access to antimicrobials, diagnostics, and vaccines as countermeasures to AMR, bringing together policymakers, regulators, researchers, manufacturers, and development partners to drive urgent action. From 30 to 31 […]
Behind the Traces: The Unseen Workforce Holding Back Mpox
Rolling back the ongoing mpox outbreak across Africa rests on a deceptively simple principle: tracing every case and isolating every contact – from casual interactions to close physical contact. Yet even as African countries gain experience in identifying and confirming mpox infections, contact tracing remains one of the most challenging links in surveillance, ring vaccination […]
Making Laws Work in Times of Public Health Emergencies
A string of crises, from HIV and Ebola to COVID-19 and mpox, has shaped the public health landscape in Africa. Further worsened by recurring threats of infectious diseases and climate-induced health challenges, each of these emergencies has shown that medical and technical capacities alone are not sufficient to protect the continent’s 1.5 billion population. Regional […]
The Digital Sentinel
Africa’s Experts Unite to Transform Primary Health Care through Digitalization Africa’s public health story is at a turning point. The continent has shown remarkable unity in recent crises, from coordinating a multi-country response to mpox to advancing a continental framework for health data governance. But these successes also revealed a deeper truth: Primary Health Care (PHC) must […]
Women Transform Health Security in Somalia
Somalia’s health system, after years of conflict, still grapples with limited funding and recurrent climate-related crises. In the aftermath, weak surveillance and minimal community-level reporting persist, hampering the detection and response to threats such as cholera, measles and respiratory infections. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), with support from the Korea International Cooperation […]
Nod for Youth’s YES! Health Strategy
African youth are often excluded from health services, governance and leadership at all levels. But this is beginning to change. Africa CDC’s new plan gives visibility and opportunity to the young leaders and changemakers already improving health in their communities. Africa CDC officially launched the Strategy for Youth Engagement and Participation in Global Health (YES! Health) 2025–2028 at the […]
Strides in Integrating Genomics into Existing Public Health Frameworks
Six countries have so far launched their national strategies on genomics in Africa. Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Nigeria have already made strides in integrating genomics into their existing public health frameworks. Eleven countries have finalised their plans and are waiting to launch. These are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, the Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Togo, Mozambique, Rwanda, Namibia, […]
Africa’s New Five-Year Plan for Biosafety and Biosecurity
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has unveiled the Biosafety and Biosecurity Strategy 2026–2030, marking a new era in Africa’s pursuit of safe science, responsible innovation and resilient health security systems. The new strategy builds on the strong foundation of the Africa CDC Biosafety and Biosecurity Initiative (BBI), launched in 2019 […]
Protecting African Communities Through Wastewater Environmental Surveillance
In Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, scientists at the National Public Health Institute examine cloudy water collected from city drains. These samples hold valuable information for public health. For Professor Isidore Bonkoungou, a bacteriology and virology specialist, this careful work marks the start of a significant change. “We are still in the early stages,” he said, […]