By GRACE AUDU, Abuja –
Director-General of West African Health Organization (WAHO), Dr. Melchior Athanase J. C Aissi, has stressed the need to continue to strengthen the capacity of the ECOWAS Regional Centre for Surveillance and Disease Control (RCSDC), if it is to achieve the objective of responding effectively and efficiently to the new outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases in West Africa.
Speaking at the opening of the 7th Meeting of the Board of Directors of ECOWAS RCSDC, at Stratton Hotel in Abuja on Thursday, Dr. Aissi noted that in recent years, an average of 40 new outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases such as Ebola, Marburg, COVID-19, Monkeypox had been recorded in ECOWAS.
Against this background, he said was necessary to position the RCSDC where it could achieve the objective for which it was created, which is to strengthen capacities for surveillance, disease prevention, response and resilience to epidemics and other health emergencies in the ECOWAS region.
Participants at the 7th Meeting of the Board of Directors of ECOWAS-RCSDC at the Stratton Hotel, Asokoro, Abuja, on Thursday.
He described the RCSDC, which was created since May 2015 following a decision of the 47th Conference of Heads of State of ECOWAS, as a young tool but already very tested by recurrent epidemics and/or emerging.
The Director-General, however, regretted that if irreversible progress had been made in the context of health security in the ECOWAS region, it was far from sufficient, in the sense that “unacceptable gaps remain within and between countries.”
According to him, “We can no longer view health security as a cost, but rather as an investment that forms the foundation of our productive, resilient and inclusive economies and societies.”
For this, he emphasized the establishment of a consolidated community approach and sensitive alert mechanisms for the early detection of the main threats, adding that to this end, “we should build on the existing strong and renewed partnerships to effectively prevent, detect and respond to public health events in West Africa.”
Dr, Aissi, who emphasised that a Board of Directors is very useful for good performance, noted that the inaugural meeting of its 1 st Board of Directors, held on June 27 and 28, 2016, made it possible to lay a solid foundation for its operation.
“Thus, in accordance with the regulations, the board of directors should meet twice a year to review the activities carried out, reassure on the lessons learned and propose actions for the next steps of the work plan for the period.”
He therefore charged participants at Thursday’s meeting to discuss updates on the epidemiological situation in West Africa and find out about the level of progress made from November 2021 to March 2023 in the CRSCM work plan, as well as to identify the bottlenecks as well as the appropriate corrective measures to support the activities of the said center, and to plan the next steps
He also urged the Board of Directors to come up with new, bold and innovative, achievable and practical ideas to guide and support countries investing in health security for the benefit of our people.
The effective background and rationale for Thursday’s Board meeting is the fact that West Africa is characterised by frequent outbreaks of epidemics and other public health emergencies, which have social, economic and political consequences that are detrimental to regional stability.
The most recent outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease, which hit three ECOWAS countries hard from 2013 to 2015, revealed weak regional response capacities to outbreaks in terms of infectious disease surveillance, early warning, preparedness and response.
To enhance regional response capacities, the 47th ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State in May 2015 endorsed the establishment of the ECOWAS/RCSDC and mandated WAHO to support the operationalisation of the agency.
Against this backdrop, WAHO submitted the Regulations establishing and stating the modus operandum of the said Centre for approval by the 48th Authority of Heads of State and Government.
The adoption of these regulations led to the establishment of the Board of Directors of the ECOWAS-RCSDC, comprising the “Director General of WAHO, the Executive Director of the ECOWAS-RCSDC, the Director of the Department of Disease and Epidemic Control of WAHO, a representative of the ECOWAS Commission, and six designated members representing the National Coordinating Institutions of Member States, a representative of the Regional Animal Health Centre and a representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
These regulations also spelt out the powers and role of the Board of Directors of ECOWAS – RCSDC, which is to validate the activities of the Regional Centre for Surveillance and Disease Control and ensure their implementation.
In order to optimise the functioning of the Board of Directors, the 17th Ordinary Meeting of the ECOWAS Assembly of Health Ministers held on April 8, 2016 in Bissau approved a resolution designating the countries to sit on the Board for the first two-year period. These are Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal.
Prof Issiaka Sombie (left) and Dr. Virgil Lokossou (r) making presentations during the meeting
The meeting of the Board of Directors of ECOWAS – RCSDC is expected to discuss significant progress made and harmonise views on the development prospects of the Centre.
To this end, these terms of reference specify the conditions for the 5th meeting of the Board of Directors of ECOWAS – RCSDC.
At the introductive session of Thursday’s meeting, the Director of Public Health & Research at the WAHO headquarters, Professor Issdiaka Sombie, and the Executive Director of the ECOWAS – RCSDC, Dr. Virgil Lokossou, presented and reviewed the implementation of ECOWAS – RCSDC and the expected outputs.
They also presented the follow-up on the recommendations of the 6th Governing Board meeting, as well as the level of implementation of the 2019 work plan was presented and discussed, submitting that out of the 11 recommendations, seven had been fully implemented.
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