Preparation and putting in place measures and strategies ahead of time to mitigate the spread of a health risk once it has been identified are the keys to preventing an outbreak of disease from becoming a pandemic.
To that end, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has launched a project to bolster national preparedness and surveillance at the points of entry along the country’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where an outbreak of Ebola eight month ago has claimed the lives of nearly 680 people according to the World Health Organization.
To prevent the outbreak from spreading to neighboring Uganda, the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) recently approved a grant of USD 717,000 to IOM to focus on national preparedness and public health response strategies with comprehensive population mobility-related information. IOM is implementing the project in synergies with other UN agencies and partnership with the Uganda Government.
“The health system through the leadership of Ministry of Health is building on strategies and structures that will be the foundation for a stronger disease surveillance system that will look not just at Ebola outbreaks, but also to all diseases that may be spreading within and across a country,” IOM Uganda Chief of Mission Ali Abdi said during a launch event for the new initiative last week in south-western Uganda.
Although none of the nine previous outbreaks in DRC were transmitted outside the country, the WHO has assessed the risk this time as “very high” due to the proximity to urban centres and international borders. Transportation and trade links are also deemed potential conduits along which the disease may spread.
The CERF-funded project Improving National Preparedness and Information Management for Ebola Virus Disease Surveillance at Ugandan Points of Entry was launched 2 April in Kisoro, one of the districts bordering DRC.
During the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, IOM developed the Health, Border and Mobility Management Framework (HBMM) for use in locations where the risk of disease transmission is high between migrant and sedentary communities. The framework empowers governments and communities to prevent, detect and respond to health threats at points of origin, transit, destination and return.
Original source: IOM
Published on 09 April 2019
