ProTECt II

Duration: 2023 - 2025

Partner countries: WHO Member States in the South-East Asia region (SEAR) and other WHO regions

Partner institutions:

• Ministries of health and public health institutions in the above-mentioned countries
• WHO South-East Asia Regional Office (WHO-SEARO)
  and
• other WHO regional offices and country offices

Involved RKI unit: Unit 31

Participant reports group work back to the plenary. Source: RKI

Challenges addressed by the project

Under the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005), all WHO Member States have committed to strengthening and maintaining their capacity to effectively respond to public health risks.

A crucial element of crisis management are mechanisms for communication, control and coordination of preparedness and response measures. In the Public Health sector, this is usually the responsibility of a Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC). Operational PHEOCs are part of the core capacities required under the IHR (2005). The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted that effective PHEOCs not only require the physical infrastructure but also appropriate plans, procedures and protocols as well as trained staff.

So far, however, PHEOC-concepts are not always implemented optimally, and in some areas appropriate capacities and mechanisms are still lacking.

Objectives

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of improved preparedness, detection, notification and response mechanisms to public health threats, thereby highlighting the importance of fully functional PHEOCs. Country-specific PHEOC guiding documents (e.g. plans, procedures, protocols) must be developed and made familiar to PHEOC staff, e.g. through training and simulation exercises.

RKI as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Emerging Infections and Biological Threats seeks, in line with IHR Article 44 (collaboration and assistance), to support other countries with IHR (2005) implementation and their core capacity strengthening. The goal of ProTECt II is to strengthen core health emergency preparedness and response capacities through effectively operational PHEOCs. ProTECt’s “Capacity Building Package” (CBP) includes training and workshop elements in order to strengthen the competencies of PHEOC staff and identify further capacity needs. It is adjusted according to the specific demands of each partner country. The CBP hereby also intends to strengthen cooperation and networking between different PHEOCs at national and subnational level and with WHO. Furthermore, ProTECt II aims to strengthen the multilateral exchange of PHEOC experiences, good practises and challenges, including existing networks, such as the WHO-led “EOC-NET”.

Overview of activities

ProTECt phase II builds on the experiences and successes from the first ProTECT project phase (2020-2022).

Planned project activities in close cooperation with WHO for Phase II include:

• Finalization of the CBP implementation with the Ministry of Health of the Maldives
• Identification of further partner countries in the WHO SEARO region and other WHO regions
• Coordination of country-specific “Capacity Building Packages” (CBP) implementation strategies with selected partner countries
• Implementation and evaluation of at least one CBP per year, including a compilation of the results in a report
• Implementation of regional, supranational PHEOC technical exchanges

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