Region: Africa

Strengthening leadership and management for preparedness in Ethiopia

Our team convened in Hawassa, Ethiopia, to facilitate a four-day leadership and management program for epidemic preparedness for 33 of the nation’s health security leaders. The training will support efforts to strengthen Ethiopia’s health security over the next five years.

Ethiopia among World Bank Pandemic Fund’s first grantees

Resolve to Save Lives supported Ethiopia to develop a successful proposal for PPR funds from the Pandemic Fund and prevent epidemics

The Pandemic Fund is the first multilateral financing mechanism dedicated to providing multiyear grants to help low- and middle-income countries become better prepared for future pandemics. Ethiopia just became one of the first countries to achieve a grant towards better epidemic preparedness, with support from our in-country team. Image credit: World Bank

Dr. Nnenna Ezeigwe joins the Board of Directors of Resolve to Save Lives Nigeria

18 JULY 2023 (ABUJA, NIGERIA)—Today, Resolve to Save Lives Nigeria (RTSL Nigeria) announced the appointment of Dr. Nnenna Ezeigwe, Co-Founder and CEO, Environment for Health Development Initiative (E4HDI), to the RTSL Nigeria Board of Directors. RTSL Nigeria is part of Resolve to Save Lives, a global health nonprofit focused on preventing 100 million deaths from cardiovascular disease and making […]

Ethiopia’s first-ever domestic infection prevention and control budget

Strong infection prevention and control (IPC) programs are essential to protect health care workers, patients, caregivers and communities. Although the World Health Organization has identified budgets as a core component of national IPC programs, only 50% of member states currently have dedicated domestic funding. Our team worked with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health to develop its […]

Nigeria builds momentum for a trans fat-free Africa

Statement from Dr. Renu Garg, Senior Vice President of Cardiovascular Health at Resolve to Save Lives 10 May 2023 (NEW YORK, USA)—“We congratulate Nigeria on the passage of its new best practice trans fat elimination policy, which will save approximately 1,200 lives per year. As the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria has set a […]

Scaling-up purchase from Africans for Africa (2014)

Multi-stakeholder initiative by the FAO, World Food Programme, Brazil and the UK, and the governments of each pilot country: Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal, to procure food from small farms for schools.

The 7-1-7 Alliance is a new country-led, global partnership to improve health security

Dr. Issa Makumbi, Director of Uganda’s Public Health Emergency Operations Centre, will serve as inaugural Chair of the Technical Steering Group for The 7-1-7 Alliance: a country-led partnership for technical assistance, financial support and a growing, global community of practice to help all countries achieve the 7-1-7 target for outbreak detection and control.

RTSL Welcomes New Board Members

RTSL welcomes Precious Matsoso to our U.S. Board of Directors, and Dr. Iruka Okeke to our Board of Directors for RTSL Nigeria.

Sharing lessons from dedicated preparedness teams

The Prevent Epidemics team held the first-ever gathering of its dedicated preparedness teams, also known as acceleration teams, in Nairobi, Kenya. Teams from DRC, Ethiopia, Liberia and Uganda gathered with RTSL staff from the global and Nigeria offices to share their successes and challenges in making epidemic preparedness a priority in their countries.

Webinar: How the 7-1-7 Approach Improves Epidemic Preparedness and Response

Featuring presentations from Dr. Issa Makumbi of Uganda’s National Public Health Institute and Dr. Ambrose Talisuna of the World Health Organization, our latest webinar gave attendees insight into 7-1-7’s utility as a performance improvement tool in Uganda and the vision of the WHO Regional Office for Africa for leveraging the metric. The event featured opening […]

Campaigns build vaccine confidence in Rwanda and Uganda

Resolve to Save Lives partnered with the Partnership for Healthy Cities to support cities in low- and middle-income countries in securing and administering COVID-19 vaccines. The campaigns, in Kampala, Uganda and Kigali, Rwanda, featured compelling video testimonials from an array of city residents about their positive experiences with inoculation. In Kigali, the campaign helped bring […]

Health care worker training at scale: Reflections from COVID-19

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Resolve to Save Lives partnered with organizations across 22 countries in Africa to support health care worker training and mentorship in primary health care facilities. After finding that existing resources were not optimized for use by health care workers, the team developed a self-paced, online course about infection […]

Highlighting the linkages between health care worker safety and epidemic preparedness

A new page on PreventEpidemics.org highlights the linkages between health care worker safety and epidemic preparedness and describes our team’s ongoing work to improve infection prevention and control measures at the primary health care level across Africa. Between April 2020 and January 2021, we worked with a variety of stakeholders and organizations to help train […]

Improving IPC in Zimbabwe

As part of a larger project to increase health care worker safety, the Prevent Epidemics team has worked to improve infection prevention and control measures and ensure maintenance of essential health services at the primary health care level at facilities across nine countries. In Zimbabwe, RTSL partnered with the Infection Control Association of Zimbabwe from […]

Strengthening Epidemic Preparedness at the Country Level

In partnership with public health institutions in eight African countries, Resolve to Save Lives released an issue brief outlining five proven approaches for national governments to significantly improve epidemic detection and containment in their communities. The model is based on joint efforts among African nations to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases […]

Celebrating advances in blood pressure control in Ethiopia

Our Ethiopia team marked World Hypertension Day with an event at Maychew Health Center in Addis Ababa featuring representatives from the Ministry of Health, the Addis Ababa Health Bureau and the Cardiac and Heart Association. A patient from the Ethiopia Hypertension Control Initiative also spoke about the experience of receiving hypertension care. Participants highlighted the […]

Providing fast, flexible funds to shorten time to respond to disease threats in Nigeria

Since 2017, Resolve to Save Lives has helped the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the African Field Epidemiology Network establish and maintain the Revolving Outbreak Investigation Fund (ROIF). This provides for the rapid release of funds for the NCDC to investigate, verify and control infectious outbreaks. With this support, Nigeria has reduced its […]