South Sudan/Uganda: Health ministry charts new strategy to counter disease outbreaks

The department of integrated epidemiology, surveillance and public health emergency, hosted a delegation from the Ministry of Health of South Sudan led to learning about the 7-1-7 framework (newvision.co.ug)

The health ministry, in partnership with its South Sudan counterpart, is discussing a new strategy to fast counter disease outbreaks in two countries.

On Monday, July 3, 2023, the department of integrated epidemiology, surveillance and public health emergency, hosted a delegation from the Ministry of Health of South Sudan led to learning about the 7-1-7 framework.

The new framework, according to Dr Allan Muruta, the commissioner for the department of integrated epidemiology, surveillance and public health emergency in the health ministry of health, proposes that an outbreak should be detected within seven days, notification made within a day and the response made within seven days.

“This [7-1-7 framework] will ensure fast control of the outbreak,” Muruta tweeted shortly after he made the delegation from South Sudan.

The new framework proposes that an outbreak should be detected within seven days, notification made within a day and the response made within seven days.

The delegation from South Sudan was led by the director general of health services Dr Malek Santo.

The delegation from South Sudan was led by the director general of health services Dr Malek Santo.

The 7-1-7 framework is an organising principle, target and Emergency Operation Centre accountability metric aimed at making the world safer from pandemics.

“It is a global framework that has been proposed to evaluate outbreak detection, notification and response timeliness metrics,” Muruta noted.

In less than three years, Uganda has suffered two major outbreaks: COVID-19 and Ebola Virus.