ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA, 24 AUGUST 2020. In collaboration with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Zoom Video Communications Inc. is offering all African Union Member States free access to Zoom Enterprise accounts to enhance and maintain close coordination, cooperation, collaboration and communication for the COVID-19 pandemic response.
In a statement to announce the partnership, Zoom Communications said: “It is a great opportunity to collaborate with Africa CDC in rendering support to African Union Member states in combating this COVID-19 Pandemic”.
Due to the lockdown and movement restrictions by many countries, travel has become very difficult and made face-to-face meetings almost impossible. Online meetings have become the modus operandi for formal and informal meetings by government and non-governmental organizations around the world since March 2020.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, Africa CDC has identified the increasing need for technologies that support virtual meetings and empower Member States with the ability to connect, learn and share knowledge and experience.
To deploy Zoom’s video-first unified communications platform to each of the 55 Member States, Africa CDC has teamed up with Zoom to grant each Member State free access to zoom accounts capable of hosting large meetings with up to 500 participants and 20-25 lines for an initial period lasting until 31 December 2020.
This collaboration supports goals of the Africa Joint Continental Strategy for COVID-19 and the vision of the Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing (PACT) initiative of Africa CDC to support the deployment of relevant technologies for COVID-19 response across Africa.
“Our joint continental strategy speaks to a couple of things – cooperation, coordination, collaboration and communication. It is in the interest of Member States to continue to share information, knowledge and experience in a timely fashion, and we applaud the management of Zoom for offering their platform to enhance this aspect of the strategy,” said Dr John Nkengasong.
Africa CDC and Zoom have held two training sessions for 34 representatives of Member States who will serve as administrators of the Zoom platform to facilitate smooth and effective deployment at National Public Health Institutes and Ministries of Health. More training sessions will be held in the coming weeks.
About Africa CDC
Africa CDC is a specialized technical institution of the African Union that strengthens the capacity and capability of Africa’s public health institutions as well as partnerships to detect and respond quickly and effectively to disease threats and outbreaks, based on data-driven interventions and programmes. Learn more at http://www.africacdc.org
About Zoom Video Communications Inc.
Zoom Video Communications, Inc. is a communications technology company headquartered in San Jose, California which provides video telephony and online chat services used for teleconferencing, telecommuting, distance education, and social relations through a cloud-based peer-to-peer software platform. Learn more at https://zoom.us/
For more information, contact:
For Africa CDC, Womi-Eteng Oboma Eteng, EtengW@africa-union.org
For Zoom, Dilayna Ivanova, dilyana.ivanova@zoom.us
