Kenya has been selected to host the Eastern Africa Regional Collaborating Center of the Africa Centers for Disease Control (Africa CDC) to monitor public health and responses to capacity challenges, the Health Ministry said on Friday.

A statement from the ministry said Kenya was selected after a capacity assessment conducted by 15 experts from the African Union (AU), World Health Organization, U.S. CDC and China CDC.

"Africa CDC intends to use the center to monitor public health and responses to emergencies, and address complex health challenges to build capacity in the region consisting of Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South-Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda," the statement said.

The regional collaborating centers enable the Africa CDC to establish early warning and response surveillance platforms.

The chair of the Africa CDC will be based at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Egypt, Gabon, Nigeria and Zambia will host other regional collaborating centers of Africa CDC.

The statement said Kenya was awarded the hosting rights because of the strength of its disease surveillance systems and the role the country played in sending disease experts to Liberia and Sierra Leone following the Ebola outbreak.

"The award is expected to strengthen the country's health systems by enhancing disease surveillance capacity in terms of infrastructure and human resources, disease outbreak alert systems as well as lab capacity,

source : xinhua