Risk ranking of epidemic-prone diseases at the Southern African Regional Coordination Centre in Botswana
Between 25 and 27 November 2024, a workshop was held in Gaborone, Botswana on the risk-ranking of epidemic-prone diseases. The workshop brought together 33 participants from Southern African Union Member States, Africa CDC and the Regional Collaborative Centres.
Participants were invited to use their knowledge and expertise to rank a list of epidemic-prone diseases, to guide the Southern African Regional Coordination Centre in the prioritisation of its preparedness activities and the allocation of resources for preparedness and field response support. The second objective of the meeting was to increase the knowledge and capacity of the participants in using risk-ranking methods and tools so that they could repeat the exercise in their home countries, triggering a cascade effect.
The workshop was prepared and facilitated by Africa CDC, together with ECDC colleagues. The risk ranking tool used was based on the ECDC tool but adapted to the Africa CDC context through a series of consultative meetings in 2022 and 2024. Delphi and multiple-criteria decision analysis methods were applied to identify the list of diseases and score them against criteria. The expected output of the workshop will include the list of ranked diseases and a report.
