Projects

Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease (SACIDS)

Overview | Impact & Achievements| Future Goals

Overview

The Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance (SACIDS) is a ONE HEALTH consortium of southern African medical and veterinary, academic and research institutions involved with infectious diseases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia in smart partnership with centres of science in industrialized countries.

The mission of SACIDS is to harness innovation in science and technology in order to improve southern Africa’s capacity (including human, financial and physical) to detect, identify and monitor infectious diseases of humans, animals, (and progressively also plants) and their interactions in order to better manage the risks they pose.

This collaboration is further reinforced at the national level by forming national virtual centres for infectious diseases known as National Centres for Infectious Disease Surveillance (NatCIDS). The driver for the SACIDS consortium is the optimal utilization of the available resources, while respecting the separate roles of human and animal health sectors in disease surveillance and response. Its headquarters is located at the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania.

Impact & Achivements

• Established operational secretariat and governance structure which is based on equity and shared vision between the two sectors
  
• Founded National Centres for Infectious Disease Surveillance (NatCIDS) in member countries to further reinforce SACIDS at the national level
• Conducted a variety of research projects and subsequent publications on priority diseases in the region

Future Goals

• Working towards One Africa, One Health

• Link with Ministries responsible for human and animal health

• Cultivating linkages with other networks in Africa

• Share best practices and lessons‐learned from other regional disease surveillance networks