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Global Partnership led Signature Initiative to Mitigate Biological Threats in Africa (SIMBA), a Driving Force to Advance Continental Biosafety and Biosecurity Initiative
By Yenew Kebede (Africa CDC) and Wilmot James (Brown University Pandemic Center)
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Africa continues to suffer from disproportionately high burden of diseases and encounters frequent outbreaks threatening health, social and economic wellbeing of the communities.1 The Continent on average responds to more than 130 disease outbreaks mostly of infectious diseases of zoonotic origin.2 Recently, Africa has been concurrently managing multi-country outbreak of mpox, which has been declared as Public Health Emergency of Continental Security (PHECS),3 an outbreak of the Ebola Sudan virus in Uganda, an outbreak of Murburg Virus Disease in Rwanda (declared over with less number of deaths as compared to previous MVD outbreaks),4 MVD in Tanzania, and others. The lessons from the response to each of the outbreaks is to strengthen early warning surveillance, laboratory, and response systems and to establish a multi-sectorial coordination mechanism that brings together all government sectors as part of a One Health approach. Additionally, these core capabilities must be managed safely and securely in order to prevent accidental or deliberate misuse, which is an integral component of health security. These are all core functions and capabilities under the International Health Regulations (IHR).5
Despite progress in many areas, IHR implementation in Africa has been quite slow. This is particularly acute in the areas of biosafety and biosecurity. The average a score for biosafety on the World Health Organization Joint External Evaluation Joint External Evaluation (JEE) conducted in 2018 was 32%.6 The Global Health Security Index (GHSI) 2019 report indicated that 66% of African Union Member States do not have policies in place on biosafety, and 81% do not have policies in place for biosecurity. Moreover, 99% of Member States do not have any oversight mechanism to manage dual use research.7 These findings warranted an innovative regional approach to address gaps in a sustainable and coordinate manner across the African continent.
In 2018, working with Global Affairs Canada and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) launched the continental biosafety and biosecurity initiative among its partners and Member States. The resulting Africa CDC Biosafety and Biosecurity Initiative (BBI) has five key objectives.8
Establish Africa-wide legal framework on biosafety and biosecurity and support the adoption of legal framework by AU Member States.
Set up continental and regional technical working groups on biosafety and biosecurity.
Introduce training and certification programs on biosafety and biosecurity.
Establish and strengthen regulatory and certification mechanism for institutions handling high consequence agents; and
Support National Public Health Institutes and National Reference Laboratories to institute core capabilities in their day-to-day operations.
Since 2018, the implementation of the Africa CDC biosafety and biosecurity initiative mostly driven by the Signature Initiative to Mitigate Biological Threats in Africa (SIMBA) of the G7-led Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. The Global Partnership is a coalition of 43 countries that seek to improve biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear security. SIMBA, which has been endorsed by the GP and supported in large part through the contributions of the Government of Canada, has become a driving force for implementing the Africa CDC BBI and strengthening health security across Africa. Through support from SIMBA, the African continent has made significant strides in building biosecurity and biosafety capacity. The African Union has now issued a model legal framework on biosafety and biosecurity, and 12 Member States have adopted it. To sustain and regionalize the effort, Africa CDC BBI has established regional Technical Working Groups (TWGs) in all 5 regions of Africa that are making significant contributions building biosecurity and biosafety capacity building, standardizing practices and developing guiding documents and standard operating procedures.
To train the next generation of African biosafety and biosecurity leaders, Africa CDC BBI launched accredited training programs in biological waste management, bio-risk management, maintenance and certification of biological safety cabinets and biocontainment engineering. This effort has now trained and certified more than 200 technical experts. An independent examination and certification committee (ECC) has been established and Centres of Excellence for biosafety and biosecurity (RCoEBB) have been designated in Southern, Eastern and Western regions and assessment ongoing to designate Centres of Excellence in the North and Central Africa regions. To reinforce compliance to international biosafety and biosecurity standards, the Africa CDC developed and implemented a certification and regulatory framework for institutions handling high consequence agents. Institutions are encouraged to apply and upon independent assessment, will get certificates indicating fulfillment of minimum standards to handle such agents. This monumental task has been implemented in close collaboration with regional partners, including the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) a division of the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) that hosts the pioneering RCoEBB.
The positive impact of SIMBA in Africa in strengthening health security is seen during outbreak response. During the recent MVD response in Rwanda, biosafety and biosecurity and sample transportation training was organized quickly using the training curriculum already available and trained experts were deployed immediately to support the response. SIMBA also brought positive changes on the implementation of IHR as seen in the changes in the scores in the recent joint external evaluation, an increase by 20% in Nigeria for example (unpublished data). The launching of the Health Security in Africa (HSPA) under SIMBA will help strengthen the early warning surveillance and leadership and coordination mechanisms. Continued investment is key in this continental initiative to strengthen key public health functions to mitigate the impact of biological threats in Africa.
Yenew Kebede and Wilmot James are respectively the co-chairs of SIMBA's Biosecurity and Biosafety and National Frameworks sub-working groups.
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