Prevention, Preparedness, and Response to Health Emergencies - Strengthening the National Surveillance Systems and Community Engagement

Background

Angola was awarded US$19.93 million from the Pandemic Fund to strengthen the country’s core capacities for prevention, preparedness, and response. The grant catalyzed an additional US$259.3 million in co-financing from international partners, as well as US$200.2 million in co-investment from the government’s own budget. The project brought together a wide range of partners, including institutions such as the Angola Red Cross, Gavi, and the Private University of Angola.

Angola faces a complicated public health landscape, shaped by challenges ranging from persistent malaria transmission to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Social, economic, and environmental factors such as informal settlements, cross-border livestock trade, and recurrent flooding compound public health risks by accelerating the spread of disease. Disparities between urban and rural areas complicate the landscape further. Only fourteen per cent of rural children are fully immunized, and outbreaks in remote areas can spread quickly without detection.

In response to this complexity, Angola’s project emphasizes multisectoral cooperation. It is led by the Ministry of Health, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Ministry of Environment. The project implementation will be supported by three implementing entities: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), UNICEF, and the World Bank.

Project objectives

With the support of the Pandemic Fund and partners, Angola aims to strengthen pandemic resilience across the country’s health sectors and minimize the impact of health emergencies on its people.

Implementation arrangements and key components

Angola's project aligns precisely with the Pandemic Fund’s three priorities: surveillance, laboratory systems, and workforce development. Detail on all project components follows.

Institutionalizing integrated surveillance. This component of the project focuses on rolling out the third edition of the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response strategy, as well as integrating the national surveillance platform and digital reporting system to enable real-time data flows and cross-sectoral analysis. It also includes improving AMR, community-based, and environmental surveillance -- the latter by monitoring water quality, tracking vector-borne diseases, and reporting indicators of possible zoonotic spillover.

Upgrading human and animal health laboratories. Activities in this area focus on upgrading eleven regional laboratories, including those at critical points of entry to Angola, and equipping them to diagnose epidemic-prone and zoonotic diseases. Five laboratories are also slated for new bacteriology capacity and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Additional activities include setting up a national specimen referral and transport system, establishing a national laboratory quality assurance program, and ensuring full compliance with biosafety and biosecurity protocols. The project includes plans to train 1,300 laboratory and field technicians.

Strengthening the public health workforce. This part of Angola’s project focuses on training 3,800 surveillance officers, deploying 600 community health workers and 100 immunization officers, and establishing rapid response teams that can deliver cross-sectoral surge capacity. These teams, comprising epidemiologists, veterinarians, and environmental health officers, will participate in annual simulations to test and institutionalize emergency protocols. The project also includes plans for International Health Regulations trainings in all the country’s municipalities.

Additional investments as part of Angola’s project will reinforce outbreak prevention and detection at the country’s points of entry and solidify One Health coordination.

The FAO will support the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry with the One Health approach, including surveillance, risk assessment, and coordination across the human and animal health sectors. UNICEF will support the Ministry of Health at both the national and community levels, focusing on expanding the laboratory network, training community health workers, and driving community engagement to improve outbreak response. The World Bank will collaborate with the Ministry of Health on disease surveillance, workforce development, emergency response, and other activities.