National PHEOC Has Conducted Advocacy Meeting and Experience Sharing Visit in collaboration with Africa CDC and National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC), Emergency Coordination Center (ECC)

National PHEOC Has Conducted Advocacy Meeting and Experience Sharing Visit in collaboration with Africa CDC and National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC), Emergency Coordination Center (ECC)

An advocacy meeting and experience sharing visit on Public Health Emergency Operation Center (PHEOC) was conducted from 21-23 March 2022 at Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI) – National Public Health Emergency Operation Center (PHEOC) in collaboration with Africa CDC and National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC)/ Emergency Coordination Center (ECC).

The objective is to create awareness by advocating emergency operation center concepts, to learn best practices among National PHEOC, NDRMC/ECC and Africa CDC PHEOCs, to apply the PHEOC framework and relevant tools for designing, developing, and strengthening PHEOC, to develop knowledge and skill required to prevent and respond to public health emergencies quickly and efficiently, to make national, regional, sub-regional, other PHE managers aware of how the different institutions are coordinating emergency management system using PHEOCs and to familiarize delegates with the PHEOC operationalization.

Participants are high-level leaders from Regional Health Bureau (RHB), Public Health Institutes (PHI), Zonal Health Departments, Jimma University Institute of Health, National Defense Force and Federal Police Commission Health Departments.

The advocacy and experience sharing started by welcoming invited delegates by Mr Zewdu Assefa, the Early Warning and Information System Management Directorate Director and Dr Feyisa Regasa, the National International Health Regulation Focal Point followed by a brief presentation made on overview of National PHEOC and Integrated Call Management System (ICMS) by EPHI and Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MINT) respectively. Later on the team visited National PHEOC and Call Center (8335); over all physical infrastructure of the National PHEOC, how it is operating, staffing, ICT system and facilities, Internet connectivity, documentation and backup system and overall PHEOC experience and how it has responded and managed public health emergencies during major outbreaks including cholera outbreak response, EVD preparedness, IDP response, Polio and COVID-19 outbreak responses.

On 22nd March 2022 the delegates visited Africa CDC PHEOC. They were briefly oriented how the Africa CDC PHEOC is functioning, also visited the physical infrastructure, understood staffing and organogram, the ICT facility and technology used, data, information management and sharing systems.

As of 23rd March 2022 the delegates visited National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC)/ECC. A brief presentation was made by ECC team about overall coordination of the center and how the center is managing national crisis, visited the physical infrastructure including ICT facility, staffing and how the IMS functions are operationalized, interaction/coordination with other sectors and key partners etc.

The Regional, Sub-regional, Federal Police, National Defense and Jimma University delegates acknowledged the opportunities organized by National PHEOC and witnessed that they have learnt immense lesson on how the NPHEOC, ECC and Africa CDC are operating to manage public health treats and believed that the experience, knowledge and skill gained during the visit will be adapted and applied on their own respective contexts accordingly.