East African Community, Arusha, Tanzania, 12th March 2021: Human mobility across countries has been one of the main sectors that facilitated the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the world, and many of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in the EAC region have also had a history of travel. After staff at international airports and border posts in the EAC region was trained as trainers on preparedness and response measures to COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the first of 4 trainings at major harbors in the EAC region has started at the port of Mombasa, Republic of Kenya, on Monday, 8 March 2021. The trainings are convened by the EAC Secretariat and organised and conducted by AMREF Flying Doctors (AFD) in cooperation with WHO.

“The trainings aim to build the knowledge of staff on safety measures, surveillance, prevention and control strategies and relevant regional guidelines”, explains the Hon. Christophe Bazivamo, the EAC-Deputy Secretary  General in charge of Productive and Social Sectors, “AMREF Flying Doctors will offer a comprehensive Training of Trainers to enable the ports to develop their own staff training and surveillance regimes”. Stephen Gitau, AMREF Flying Doctors Chief Executive Officer says that “this will contribute greatly toward the pillar of enhanced safety for travelers and the duty of care of Partner States towards their port staff.”

While past capacity building and awareness measures primarily focused on port health staff, this training will involve a wide range of staff with close contact to passengers and/or their luggage, such as port medical service providers, ship operators, selected crew members, staff at immigration and customs and cargo and baggage handlers among others.

The training at composes of one or two 2-day courses, depending on the size of the harbour. Topics will include among others “the port as a “red zone” – recognition of hot zones in the port and measures to identify and demarcate these areas”; “quarantine and isolation of passengers” and “decontamination of ships and harbour areas”.

Each class will have 16 participants – taking into account social distancing requirements – so that a total of 80 key port personnel at the 4 harbours will become trained trainers and are expected to spearhead the development and conduction of targeted training sessions for the rest of the port personnel. The trained trainers will develop and conduct their own classes to roll-out their brief training sessions and AMREF Flying Doctors will support the process and monitor the progress.

The course design and curriculum development are based on the International Health Regulations and best practices of the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control. Further ports to be trained until mid of April 2021 are Zanzibar (United Republic of Tanzania), Kisumu (Republic of Kenya) and Bujumbura (Republic of Burundi).

The training is facilitated by the German Government through the Deutsche Gesellschaft fürInternationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in its effort to support states in their response to COVID-19. GIZ supports the EAC Secretariat in its advisory and coordinating role for the Partner States in pandemic preparedness.

For more information, please contact:

Simon Peter Owaka
Senior Public Relations Officer
Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Department
EAC Secretariat
Arusha, Tanzania
Tel: +255 768 552087
Email: sowaka [at] eachq.org

About the East African Community Secretariat:

The East African Community (EAC) is a regional intergovernmental organisation of six Partner States, comprising Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, with its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.