At the last count, a total of three African countries have reported confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease – COVID-19, they are Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria.

According to the Africa CDC, it has its Emergency Operations Center and its Incident Management System (IMS) for the COVID-19 outbreak on 27 January 2020. Furthermore, the second Africa CDC Incident Action Plan (IAP) for COVID-19 covering a one month period from 13 February to 12 March 2020 has been developed.

On 22 February, the Africa Union Ministers of Health gathered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for an emergency COVID-19 meeting where they agreed upon a joint continental strategy and guidance for assessment, movement restrictions, and monitoring of people at risk for COVID-19, including people being repatriated from China.

Africa CDC is also holding weekly updates with national public health institutes in Member States and has formed working groups for high priority areas of coronavirus control, including: surveillance; laboratory diagnosis; infection prevention and control; clinical care; and risk communication.

Regarding surveillance, Africa CDC said it has collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO) to train in-coming analysts in event-based surveillance using the Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources platform. These headquarters will be working closely with the Regional Collaborating Centres and Member States to track and verify COVID-19 related events, providing critical information to inform Member States response and control efforts.

It is also in collaboration with WHO provided two Training of Trainers (TOT) events for participants coming from 18 countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Zambia, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia  to enhance surveillance at points of entry for COVID-19.  An additional training coordinated by ICAO will be held in April targeting 20 countries.

“Africa CDC in collaboration with the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be training 20 countries in event-based surveillance for COVID-19 starting in March 2020. The first training will be held in Kampala, Uganda 2-4 March,” Africa CDC stated.