On the sidelines of the second ECOWAS International Conference on Lassa Fever, currently taking place at the Radisson Hotel in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the ECOWAS Regional Center for Disease Surveillance and Control (RCDSC) organized a panel discussion on the theme: “Strengthening Health Security in the ECOWAS Region: Role, Achievements, and Prospects.”
The objective of this panel discussion was to facilitate dialogue with endemic countries to identify areas where regional support can strengthen prevention, cross-border surveillance, laboratory systems, workforce, and community engagement.
The discussions yielded several expected outcomes: a shared understanding of priorities and gaps, as well as clear recommendations to strengthen national efforts with ECOWAS support.
Among the speakers, Professor Daniel Ekra, Director General of the National Institute of Public Hygiene (INHP) of Côte d’Ivoire, stressed the need to strengthen national surveillance systems before optimizing regional collaboration:
“The flow of information from the peripheral to the central level remains unreliable in several countries. The CRSCM must help fill these gaps in order to strengthen national surveillance systems,” he said.
Dr. Tochi Okwro, Deputy Director for Disease Prevention and Health Promotion in Nigeria, emphasized the importance of harmonizing protocols and strengthening cross-border cooperation mechanisms:
“ECOWAS can standardize best practices, maintain a database of rapid response teams, and support the deployment of medical countermeasures between countries,” she explained.
The CRSCM outlines regional perspectives.
For his part, Dr. Diarrassouba Mamadou, Executive Director of the ECOWAS CRSCM, outlined the institution’s missions and perspectives.
“Our role is to monitor, prevent, detect, and respond effectively to epidemics by working with the national public health institutes of all member states,” he reiterated.
He also emphasized the need for resource pooling and more seamless information sharing between countries:
“No country can respond to an epidemic alone. We must strengthen regionalization and pool our resources, including at the laboratory level. For example, two neighboring countries could share their reference laboratories instead of multiplying costly facilities,” he proposed.
Dr. Diarrassouba Mamadou finally called for the political validation of regional strategic texts, such as the regional One Health strategic plan or the governance manual of the ECOWAS One Health mechanism, which are essential to provide a legal basis for joint initiatives.
