The regional steering committee for the fourth phase of the Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement (REDISSE) project in Central Africa met to examine and discuss the achievements, lessons learned, next steps, and recommendations for the implementation of the project.

The meeting brought together many experts from the project’s beneficiary countries: the Republic of Angola, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of Chad. It was also attended by experts from REDISSE IV’s international partner organizations – Unicef, WHO, WOAH, AFENET, and the Mérieux Foundation – and from the project’s regional coordination and management unit and the management units in the beneficiary countries.

The technical meeting included five key highlights:

• Presentation of the main achievements
• Sharing of the results of the studies conducted and the experience of project implementation by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola
• Presentation and assessment of the project’s performance
• Discussion about how to sustain the results
• Presentation on the state of progress of the activities implemented by the project partners

The discussions highlighted the main achievements of the project in terms of four key components: strengthening surveillance and laboratory capacity for rapid epidemic detection, strengthening emergency planning and management capacity, developing human resources in public health, and finally reinforcing institutional, management, coordination, and advocacy capacity.

Several issues were also emphasized in relation to the installation and operation of the “One Health” platform, the role of the environment in the project’s implementation in the beneficiary countries, the maintenance of the equipment supplied, and the development of the REDISSE IV closure and completion plan.

The Mérieux Foundation, providing technical support to the REDISSE IV project

The Mérieux Foundation provided technical expertise as part of the REDISSE IV project over the last 18 months in order to help reinforce laboratory networks with an integrated approach to human, environmental, and animal health at local, national, and regional level, particularly in the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, and Chad.

Its work was structured into three stages: listing the main One Health players and assessing three national laboratory networks; identifying, defining, and establishing the budget for the priority actions in each country; and finally deploying these priority actions. These activities helped to bring the laboratory networks studied into line with quality standards, strengthen their data management, and reinforce the skills of laboratory staff.

The Mérieux Foundation’s work provided an opportunity to map the laboratory systems in each of the project countries. These mappings provide a better understanding of the laboratory systems for human, environmental, and animal health in both institutional and technical terms, making it possible to identify the main stakeholders and key partners in each country.

The Foundation also conducted the assessment of the One Health laboratory system in Chad.

This technical support will continue in 2024 in four areas:

• Strengthening the structure of the laboratory networks
• Contributing to harmonization with international quality standards
• Reinforcing data management
• Supporting the harmonization of the external quality assessment programs.