Sierra Leone, US discuss Global Health Security

By Kemo Cham

[First publsihed on www.politicosl.com] Sierra Leone is playing host to a delegation from the United States as part of efforts to advance the Global Health Security Agenda(GHSA), the US embassy in Freetown has announced.

The visit which, started yesterday and would continue till 29, January this year would see the US Government team hold discussions with their Sierra Leonean counters, together with international partners on how to push ahead with the initiative in line with the country’s post-Ebola recovery agenda.

The Global Health Security Agenda is a partnership with countries across the world, international organizations and public and private stakeholders. It seeks to accelerate progress toward a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats and to promote global health security as an international security priority.

The GHSA is a partnership of 50 nations, international organizations and public and private stakeholders. Its main trust is to help build countries’ capacity, especially those in the developing world, to meet their health challenges.

GHSA pursues a multilateral and multi-sectoral approach to strengthen both the global capacity and the capacity of individual countries to prevent, detect, and respond to human and animal infectious diseases.

GHSA was first launched in February 2014, at the height of the West African Ebola epidemic.

Last November US President Barack Obama announced that the United States and 30 partner countries had made a commitment to work together to achieve the targets of the GHSA to assist countries in developing the capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to future disease outbreaks. Sierra Leone was among the 30 partner nations.

The team from the US comprises representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of State.

“The U.S is expanding and introducing multi-year programs to help Sierra Leone achieve GHSA goals as an important part of recovery and to maintain resilience to prevent Ebola and other infectious disease outbreaks,” a press statement from the US embassy copied to Politico reads in part.

(C) Politico 28/01/16