Africa CDC, in collaboration with ASLM, FIND, and CHAI, launched a Consultative Workshop on Revised COVID-19 Testing and Surveillance Strategy – Africa CDC - ISS-G20 Laboratorium Repository

Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), in collaboration with the Africa Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), launched a Consultative Workshop on Revised COVID-19 Testing and Surveillance Strategy: Transitioning from Emergency Response to Integration into Routine Healthcare Services.

The Consultative Workshop on Revised COVID-19 Testing and Surveillance Strategy was officially opened today in Accra, Ghana by Dr Emmanuel Ankrah Odame, Director Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation, Ministry of Health, Ghana and Dr. Ahmed Ogwell OUMA Ag. Director of the Africa CDC The theme of the workshop is “Transitioning from Emergency Response to Integration into Routine Healthcare Services and Strengthened Surveillance Systems for COVID-19 on the African continent”.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Africa Union through Africa CDC rolled out the Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing (PACT) to scale up testing for COVID-19 in June 2020. This continental initiative helped AU Member States limit COVID-19 transmission while ensuring an increased access to diagnostics and medical supplies, as well as capacity building through strengthening competences of front-line healthcare personnel needed to support response at the country level.

In between the launch of PACT and the Revised COVID-19 Testing and Surveillance Strategy, several guidance documents have been released by the Africa CDC and partners. These guidelines include among
others: the interim guidance on the use of SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid diagnostic tests (Ag RDTs); COVID-19 Ag RDT self-testing guidelines, and COVID-19 Test & Treat guidance with the aim to complement the facility based testing protocols and improve access to SARSCoV-2 diagnostic testing; and genomics surveillance.
However, with the rapidly evolving epidemiology of the pandemic and the multiple recent changes on the COVID-19 response globally and at continental levels such as lifting of lockdowns, expansion of vaccination, a generalized decline in demand for testing, there is urgent need for action to ensure the revised guidance for COVID-19 testing and surveillance strategy are effectively and efficiently implemented across AU Members States while ensuring surveillance systems remain functional to timely detect any potential resurgences.

This three-days consultative workshop brings together laboratory directors, surveillance leads and incident managers for COVID-19 from the 46 AU Members States to jointly deliberate, explore and formulate practical approaches and interventions that will foster intergration and expansion of COVID-19 testing services and surveillance into routine healthcare service while leveraging on existing structures within other disease programmes. Outputs from this consultative workshop with enable AU Member States consolidate the gains made in the COVID-19 response, facilitate harmonized and coordinated implementation of strategies for integration and building of robust surveillance systems for potential
outbreaks in future beyond COVID-19.

Entire content available on: https://africacdc.org/news-item/africa-cdc-in-collaboration-with-aslm-find-and-chai-launched-a-consultative-workshop-on-revised-covid-19-testing-and-surveillance-strategy/