Between 8th and 10th May 2023, the Uganda National Institute of Public Health organised a dissemination workshop to share the findings of the Population Connectivity Across Borders (PopCAB) activity conducted in November 2022 at Lwakhakha (Uganda-Kenya) and Cyanika (Rwanda-Uganda) borders. The assessment was conducted by field epidemiologists from Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETP), as well as the representatives from the Uganda Ministry of Health National border health unit, Baylor Uganda, Infectious Diseases Institute with support from United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 2022 through The International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI).
The findings indicated mobility dynamics for both humans and animals at these borders. Travellers moved across the border to look for better healthcare and education, trade, social reasons, religious and cultural reasons, employment opportunities, agriculture, and mining. The findings also indicated that the volume of travellers varied by season. Travellers used both official (4 Kenya-Uganda, 5 Rwanda-Uganda borders) and unofficial (14 Kenya-Uganda, 20 Uganda-Rwanda) Points of Entry (PoE) for exit and entry movements on borders.
The findings highlighted potential public health threats such as travel to key destination points with an ongoing EVD outbreak at the time, preference for unofficial PoE with no screening, and risky behaviour such as commercial sex trade, and animal movement with no screening.
The findings of this activity informed the ministries of health of the three east African countries on how to design both cross-border EVD and post-EVD surveillance and response interventions. Other future uses of findings included: documentation of PopCAB outcomes for wider usage, further dissemination of findings (district level), adopting PopCAB into routine surveillance, enhancing community-based, increase community engagement (Risk communication and community engagement -RCCE)