Africa CDC Warns of Rising Outbreak Risks, Calls for Stronger Community Surveillance
Oluwatobi Adu 
ABUJA, Nigeria – The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has urged African governments to intensify community-based surveillance, expand vaccination campaigns and strengthen cross-border collaboration to curb ongoing disease outbreaks across the continent.
The call was made on Friday by the Incident Manager for Health Emergencies at Africa CDC, Prof. Yap Boum, during the agency’s weekly briefing on the epidemiological situation of Mpox, cholera, Ebola, Rift Valley fever and malaria.
“We are in the countdown phase for Ebola in Bulape, but this does not mean we are out of the outbreak,” he said. “We must strengthen monitoring, surveillance, and community engagement to sustain progress.”
On Mpox, Boum reported that the continent had recorded an 80 percent decline from peak levels, with 13 countries administering vaccines to over 1.5 million people. However, he expressed concern over renewed transmission in Kenya, Liberia and Ghana.
“We are not resting until all member states reach acceptable thresholds for transition to national surveillance,” he said, noting that 20,000 vaccine doses have been deployed to Kenya to support community-level response.
However, Boum described cholera as the continent’s most severe challenge, with 297,394 cases and 6,084 deaths reported across 23 African countries so far in 2025.
“Cholera is a disease of inequity,” he said. “Stopping it requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. We must move beyond emergency response and invest in clean water and sanitation systems.”
The Africa CDC Surveillance and Disease Intelligence Unit, Dr. Kyeng Mercy announced that the agency has launched a continental health data architecture and information exchange policy to improve data protection, reporting harmonisation and outbreak intelligence across member states.
“Our goal is to build resilient systems that prevent future outbreaks rather than react to them,” Boum said. “Strong community engagement, rapid response, and cross-border coordination remain our best tools.”
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Mirian Gom 
Chukwu Obinna 
