Ali S. Khan, MD, MPH, returned to Uganda this week.
Dr. Khan, dean of the UNMC College of Public Health, and UNMC also were just reappointed to the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) Steering Committee. His trip to Uganda, the second in the last month, is part of GOARN’s response to an Ebola outbreak in the country.
GOARN is a WHO network of more than 250 technical institutions and networks globally that respond to acute public health events with the deployment of staff and resources to affected countries. UNMC was invited to become a member of the GOARN steering committee in 2017.
With the committee reappointment, UNMC joins the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the only two entities from the United States who are GOARN steering group members.
“We can help set the agenda for global public health responses as part of the steering committee for this large network of partners who respond to outbreaks,” Dr. Khan said. “We help influence how we are improving alerting, preparedness and response for outbreaks — making sure we identity, prevent and contain them as fast as possible.”
The appointment also gives UNMC a role in the evolving science and the practice of high-hazard pathogen preparedness and response, solidifying its position as a global leader in health security.
“These deployments also allow our faculty to get additional experience that they bring back to Nebraska and use — not just in our biocontainment unit or our state — but to help influence nationally what we do in terms of disease detection, case management or infection control for these high-hazard pathogens,” Dr. Khan said.
In addition, UNMC and other University of Nebraska experts support GOARN with its technical and research efforts.
Andre Kalil, MD, of the UNMC Division of Infectious Diseases, deployed to Brazil for COVID-19, and Mark Kortepeter, PhD, of the UNMC Department of Epidemiology, deployed to Burundi for Ebola in 2018.
The university also supports the network with technical expertise in strategic planning (through work by Lauren Sauer and Jocelyn Herstein, PhD), learning management (Janet Skogerboe), training (Sharon Medcalf, PhD), communications (with Sharon Baldinelli, PhD, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and gaming (with Deepak Khazanchi, PhD, at the University of Nebraska at Omaha). Phil Smith, MD, emeritus faculty of the College of Public Health and founder of the UNMC Biocontainment Unit also supports an MPH student fellowship at WHO every summer with the Operational Support Team for the network.
The work with GOARN will be invaluable, Dr. Khan said, if high-hazard pathogens such as Ebola ever make their way to the U.S.
Currently, Dr. Khan is assisting on what he described as “a very dynamic” Ebola outbreak currently in Uganda.
“There’s a concern that until the outbreak is fully contained, that it could spread more widely, including within Kampala, a city of between 3-4 million people,” he said. “The last thing you want is widespread Ebola in an urban area.”
In the current deployments, GOARN is drawing on Dr. Khan’s longtime Ebola and public health expertise. He currently is serving as a senior liaison officer, assisting with the coordination of the large international organizations on the ground.
“This gives me a platform in which to help share my expertise on Ebola responses, since I’ve been doing them for more than 25 years now,” he said. “I interact as a representative of the World Health Organization to make sure there’s good alignment between what the international partners are doing in support of the well managed and excellent Ministry of Health-led outbreak response — all with a common mission of saving the lives and livelihoods of Ugandans.”
UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, MD, said, “International health security has become ever more important in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are proud the UNMC continues to take a global leadership role. We continually share experiences and expertise with nations widely around the world.”