About ACoDD

Launched on 7 May 2018, the AFENET Corps of Disease Detectives (ACoDD) is a One Health-based civil, voluntary service of culturally competent professional field epidemiologists. The aim is to ensure maximum and efficient utilization in public health emergency response of the well-trained workforce produced by frontline, intermediate, and advanced Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETPs). ACoDD’s mandate is to step up, at a moment’s notice, to investigate any type of public health threat, identify and contain it at source in collaboration with ministries of health, the World Health Organization (WHO), Africa CDC and other partners.  Deployed ACoDD teams provide surge support to national outbreak investigation and response teams where they support various aspects of the response such as case identification and investigation, contact tracing, community sensitization, and suspected-case referral for clinical management. Based on need, ACoDD teams are deployed within their home countries or in other countries. ACoDD members are spread across sub-Saharan Africa. Coordination of ACoDD activities is by a focal point at the AFENET Secretariat in collaboration with AFENET Regional Technical Coordinators at our four regional hubs and FETP national focal persons.