LUANDA, Angola  –   Landstuhl Regional Medical Center’s global health engagement team recently supported U.S. Africa Command as they travelled to the African country of Angola to conduct a subject matter expert exchange with the health division of the Armed Forces for Angola Aug. 19 – 23, 2024.

The two teams met to discuss advanced medical skills required for rapid response during emerging disease outbreaks with the goal of increasing interoperability regarding outbreak management, surveillance, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

“We discussed in detail a myriad of preventative medicine practices, outbreak best practices, and lessons learned, including COVID-19, malaria, and yellow fever,” said Col. Claude Burnett, LRMC’s global health engagement and clinical readiness director.

According to attendees, both teams benefited from the exchange, learning from one another in addressing healthcare issues, as well as shared challenges and response strategy to COVID-19 faced by U.S. and Angolan military care providers.

“While scale, resources, and outcomes of the COVID-19 responses differed significantly, the similarities underscore common public health strategies between the two countries,” added Burnett. “We look forward to future engagements to continue collaboration with Angola, to advance interconnectedness and public health strategy alignment, further ensuring coordinated efforts to prevent outbreaks and containment.”

For resource constrained countries like Angola, these exchanges mean not only enhancing the readiness of their forces, but also improving the health outcome of its citizens.

According to Lt. Gen. Alberto De Almeida, Angolan Armed Forces director of health services, 90 percent of the COVID-19 response in Angola fell to its military’s medical forces.

“This exchange event with Angola highlights the critical importance of partnerships with our allies, partner nations, and friends to collaborate on disease management response,” said U.S. Army Maj. Tanya Bolden, LRMC’s global health engagement and clinical readiness deputy director. “One of the key elements achieved from this engagement was shared knowledge to improve real-time preparedness of emerging infectious diseases and enhanced interoperability between both nations.”