COVID-19: US Upgrades Akwa Ibom State Emergency Operations Centers  

The United States Ambassador Mary Beth Leonard on Tuesday joined officials of Akwa Ibom State to virtually commission an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) newly equipped with support of the American people to track and control the spread of the deadly COVID-19.

In line with priorities set by Nigeria’s Center for Disease Control (NCDC), USAID programmed $1.1 million to upgrade and expand the capacity of the nine EOCs to strengthen the COVID-19 response in Nigeria.

The upgraded centers are now equipped as operational digital situation and communication rooms that power and coordinate the state COVID response and other disease outbreaks, utilizing data integration, warehousing, and visualization to provide state officials transparent and real-time information on COVID-19.

Over the last two decades, the United States has invested more than $8 billion in the Nigerian health sector. These upgrades have helped seamlessly and creatively transform previous investments and experiences to support Nigeria’s COVID response by leveraging the existing PEPFAR, tuberculosis, and other health investments.

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These investments include boosting laboratory capacity, establishing mega labs, procuring diagnostic machines, augmenting sample transport, enhancing contact tracing, mobilizing risk management communications, and fine-tuning data analytics, outbreak management, and monitoring.

The Akwa Ibom facility is the seventh of nine states EOC’s to be publicly commissioned after receiving the USAID-funded upgrades. Other states include Adamawa, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Cross River, Edo, Kano, Niger, and Oyo.

The United States has dedicated more than $237 million to the COVID response in Africa, with $51.5 million supporting these efforts in Nigeria.

This includes support from 61 U.S. government staff from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Centers for Disease Control, and USAID staff to Nigeria’s Presidential Task Force. These professionals support key priorities under the NCDC’s COVID-19 response plan such as building information and surveillance capacities for prevention, and strengthening detection and long-term response capacity.