Health Official Race to Turn Outbreaks into Data Before Turning Deadly

Feb 28 , 2026. By BEKALU ANTENEH ( FORTUNE STAFF WRITER. )

Public health authorities are trying to make the next outbreak a data problem before it becomes a crisis. According to officials at the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), they have consolidated disease surveillance and emergency response under a centre designed to pull information from across the health system into one platform to spot threats earlier and guide responses in real time.

Public health institutes are trying to make the next outbreak a data problem before it becomes a crisis.

According to officials of the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), they now have consolidated disease surveillance and emergency response under a centre that pulls information from across the health system into one platform, intended to spot threats much sooner, track them and guide responses in real time.

A Minister of Council regulation, first issued in 2013 and revised a decade later, assigns the Institute responsibility for coordinating public health emergency functions, including preparedness, early warning and surveillance, response, and recovery. The work sits under the Institute's Public Health Emergency Management wing, tasked with detecting threats, analysing data, and mobilising human, financial, and material resources.

Epidemics recur, and Ethiopia has faced outbreaks across different regions, with economic and social costs. Health officials believe fragmented reporting has been a chronic weakness to effective responses. Information arrives late, incompatible, and hard to translate into coordinated action. The new facility, which the Institute's official christened the Centre of Excellence, is meant to narrow that lag, limiting the damage outbreaks can cause in communities and the wider economy.

The urgency is heightened by the Marburg virus, first identified in 1967 and linked to green monkeys in Uganda.

On November 12, 2025, the Ministry of Health and the Institute reported cases of the Marburg virus in Jinka town in the southern part of the country, an outbreak that caused multiple deaths. Marburg causes fever, muscle pain, diarrhoea and vomiting. In severe cases, bleeding can occur, leading to sudden death. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the virus kills almost half of those infected, with mortality in past outbreaks ranging from 24pc to 88pc.

During the Marburg outbreak, officials recorded 13 infections in the region, after testing more than 1,800 samples. Eight laboratory-confirmed and five suspected cases were reported, while four patients died and another four recovered.

EPHI’s institutional answer is a Public Health Emergency Management Centre of Excellence (PHEM CoE), built around a refurbished centre for public health emergency operations. Officials hope the PHEOC would be a hub that brings together expertise and resources to coordinate responses. The renovated Centre, on Swaziland St in Gulelle District, near Pasteur Roundabouts, is part of a push launched in May 2025 to strengthen surveillance, rapid response, workforce development, evidence generation and multi-sectoral coordination, while reinforcing collaborative networks and building new ones.

“We've equipped the PHEOC to enable a digitised, secure, and interoperable public health emergency management system,” said Melkamu Abte (MD), deputy director general of PHEM.

According to Melkamu, the ICT infrastructure, connectivity and automated tools are intended to improve data accuracy, support early detection of threats, facilitate coordinated responses, and strengthen joint decision-making.

Equipment worth over 890 million Br has been spent to build national-level capacity, including ICT support for all regional states. Officials praised the shift as a move from paper-based reporting to an integrated framework intended to strengthen early warning, monitoring and evidence-based decision-making.

“In this one year since May 2025, we've worked diligently with our partners to design and deploy digital platforms and tools,” Melkamu told Fortune.

More than 4,000 professionals have been trained to operate the digital system. Officials credit the ePHEM platform and that workforce with supporting rapid responses to outbreaks, including Marburg and Mpox.

Samples collected from health facilities were transmitted to the Institute through the digital system, helping contain the outbreak faster than anticipated. The regional agencies also ran awareness campaigns, conducted door-to-door testing, and screened people entering and leaving affected areas to contain transmission.

Health officials from regional states, such as Agune Ashole, director general of the Southern Ethiopia Regional Public Health Institute, appeared convinced that the new workflow mattered. He confirmed that his office had received ICT devices, tablets, and personal computers from the Institute, which were used to send information to the Centre.

"The outbreak was brought under control in less than three months," Agune told Fortune. "The Centre of Excellence played a decisive role."

External partners have been drawn in. Project HOPE Ethiopia has supported health security activities in the Amhara, Afar and Tigray regional states.

Elias Walelign (MD), deputy chief of party for the project HOPE health security activity, a project funded by the United States government, has worked on the initiative for a year. He believes that digital management of surveillance and emergency coordination addresses a longstanding weakness by collecting data nationally and flagging areas needing urgent intervention.

"More work is required on community advocacy and training professionals in the field," said Elias.

Experts like Elias caution that the Centre's test will be whether a unified digital backbone can stay coherent under pressure and across geography. Health officials say sustaining early momentum and closing detection gaps across all regional states will depend on consistent implementation, continued training and reliable connectivity.

PUBLISHED ON Feb 28,2026 [ VOL 26 , NO 1348]