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- May 11, 2013
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Kenya has been selected to host the Eastern Africa regional collaborating centre of the Centres for Disease Control.
Health principal secretary Nicholas Muraguri said Kenya was picked after a successful capacity assessment conducted by 15 experts drawn from the African Union, the World Health Organisation, CDC-US and CDC-China.
The CDC is the leading national public health institute of the United States, the equivalent of Kemri in Kenya.
Africa CDC intends to use the Kenya centre to monitor public health and responses to emergencies.
It will also address complex health challenges in Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South-Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
"Kenya was awarded the hosting rights because of the strength of its disease surveillance systems and the role the country played in sending disease experts to Liberia and Sierra Leone following the Ebola outbreak. The technical competence of the Kenya Medical Research Institute also contributed to the selection," Dr Muraguri said in a statement.
The award is expected to strengthen the country’s health systems by enhancing disease surveillance capacity in terms of infrastructure and human resources, disease outbreak alert systems as well as lab capacity.
Kenya will formally be endorsed by heads of states during the forthcoming AU summit, alongside Egypt, Gabon, Nigeria and Zambia which, will also host other regional collaborating centres.
The chair of the Africa CDC will be based at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Health principal secretary Nicholas Muraguri said Kenya was picked after a successful capacity assessment conducted by 15 experts drawn from the African Union, the World Health Organisation, CDC-US and CDC-China.
The CDC is the leading national public health institute of the United States, the equivalent of Kemri in Kenya.
Africa CDC intends to use the Kenya centre to monitor public health and responses to emergencies.
It will also address complex health challenges in Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South-Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
"Kenya was awarded the hosting rights because of the strength of its disease surveillance systems and the role the country played in sending disease experts to Liberia and Sierra Leone following the Ebola outbreak. The technical competence of the Kenya Medical Research Institute also contributed to the selection," Dr Muraguri said in a statement.
The award is expected to strengthen the country’s health systems by enhancing disease surveillance capacity in terms of infrastructure and human resources, disease outbreak alert systems as well as lab capacity.
Kenya will formally be endorsed by heads of states during the forthcoming AU summit, alongside Egypt, Gabon, Nigeria and Zambia which, will also host other regional collaborating centres.
The chair of the Africa CDC will be based at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
