RIVM has, through the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the context of the Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, coordinated a biosafety and biosecurity project in Uganda, thereby aligning its activities with the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). This project (‘Biosecurity in Uganda’) has been carried out between 2014 and 2016. The project included amongst others the coordination for a National Inventory of Dangerous Pathogens (NIDP) program for bio-preparedness and policy support. As a follow up of the biosafety and biosecurity related activities in Uganda, the project successfully expanded similar activities to the neighbouring countries Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia in 2016-2019. The current project focus on the lessons learned of the implementation of a NIDP in these four countries.

Goal of the project

The goal of this follow up project is to collect lessons learned of implementation of a NIDP in four countries in East Africa, with the aim to improve the guidelines based on their experiences to facilitate a smoothened implementation process in other countries that aim to implement a NIDP. These lessons can be useful for other international project in which an implementation of a NIDP is foreseen. An additional goal is to reach out to the involved countries and assist them to further increase their biosecurity capacity by fruitful open discussions on how to proceed and by sharing experiences of their neighbouring countries.

Who is involved

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Netherlands.

RIVM role 

The RIVM team has developed an open access methodology, including a software tool, for the selected countries to set up a national inventory of dangerous pathogens according to best practices. The software tool has been given to Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia as a tool for the implementation of an NIDP. 

RIVM staff members from the Laboratory for Zoonoses and Environmental Microbiology and the Biosecurity Office are involved.