2nd International Conference on Public Health in Africa

The 2nd International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA), organized by the Africa CDC and the African Union and hosted by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Rwanda and the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) is a three-day conference held on 13–15 December 2022 that will provide a unique platform for African researchers, policymakers and stakeholders to come together and share perspectives and research findings in public health while ushering in a new era of strengthened scientific collaboration and innovation across the continent. Building on CPHIA 2021, this year’s conference will also serve as a catalyst to build more resilient health systems that allow African countries to better prepare for and manage emerging health threats while also addressing long-standing infectious diseases.

Conference programme

Side events

• Reaching the last mile through digitally-enabled solutions: lessons from the COVID-19 testing response, 14 December 2022, 13:00–16:30 CAT | 12:00–15:30 CET, Lemigo Hotel, Plenary Hall

Achieving universal access to diagnostics requires healthcare services to reach people where they are. The COVID-19 response injected new urgency into decentralized testing, with health systems across the world rapidly rolling out innovations to bring testing as close to people as possible.

Data-driven design, implementation, and evaluation of people-centred models of care are key to health systems’ resilience. Digital tools can support this by enabling rapid, efficient data management to guide decision-making, facilitating follow-up and linkages, and providing health workers and patients with critical health information needed to ensure quality services.

This interactive event brings together a wide range of stakeholders including researchers, civil society, and policymakers to exchange practical learnings, and articulate future priorities, for digitally-supported decentralization of diagnosis, particularly at the community level. The event will include two interactive panel sessions, a deep dive into community health worker (CHW) perspectives on opportunities and challenges for CHW-led diagnosis in different settings, and presentations from senior government officials on implementing digital health innovations at scale.

The event will be preceded by a networking lunch at 13:00 CAT, followed by sessions at 13:30 CAT. The event will also be live-streamed and allow for remote participation—by registering, attendees agree to potentially have their image(s) and inputs distributed in this way.

Flyer

• Decentralizing diagnostics in strengthening health systems for equitable access, 15 December 2022, 07:00–08:30 CAT | 06:00–07:30 CET, Meeting Hall 2, Kigali Convention Centre

It is estimated that close to half of the global population has little to no access to diagnostics. Making health service delivery patient-centred and integrating it into primary healthcare is critical to strengthening health systems. Point-of-care and decentralized testing in community and primary care settings have the potential to transform infectious disease diagnostic testing in a wide range of countries.

Speakers will explore how to accelerate the decentralization of diagnostics in health systems for equitable access from a variety of perspectives including government stakeholders, manufacturers, and implementing partners. Presentations will be followed by a roundtable aiming to pull together the enablers of decentralization for a holistic and timely discussion.

Flyer

Plenary session

15 December 2022, 11:00–12:30 CAT
Title: Increasing Local Production in Africa: Advocacy, Research and Development Capacity in Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Vaccine Manufacturing
Moderator: Daniel Bausch, Senior Advisor, Global Health Security, FIND