East African Community military health leaders gathered in Kampala to forge a unified defense against regional public health emergencies.
Major General Don Nabasa opened the extraordinary meeting of Chiefs and Directors of Military Health Services by urging member states to abandon isolated national strategies for shared operational capabilities.
“An outbreak that begins in one country can quickly become a regional concern. Our operations move across borders for trade, employment, family and other social activities. Our economies are interconnected. Our security interests are very similar,” said Maj Gen Nabasa, Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces Joint Staff Policy and Strategy.
Delegates from Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Somalia, Burundi, and South Sudan attended the two-day summit held under the theme “Sharing strategic experiences, past operational lessons and best practices in response to public health emergencies.”
Drawing on Uganda’s handling of Ebola outbreaks and COVID-19, Nabasa emphasized that successful emergency responses require military discipline and logistical reach to complement civilian health ministries.
“These experiences have taught us that the success of an emergency response depends not only on the availability of medical experts, but also on the ability to organise people, provide resources, move rapidly, maintain discipline, connect different institutions and sustain operations under different circumstances. These are capabilities that our armed forces understand very well,” Nabasa told the delegates.
Building Regional Standby Arrangements
The meeting centers on five priority areas designed to turn regional goodwill into practical cooperation. Participating military health services plan to map existing capabilities—including hospitals, laboratories, transport assets, and engineering units—into a unified inventory.
Leaders are also discussing a framework to share specialized medical expertise, establish regional standby arrangements, and maintain regular assessments of capability gaps across the bloc.
“Let us use this meeting to move from goodwill to practical cooperation. From sharing experiences to sharing capabilities. From individual national preparedness to a stronger regional system,” Nabasa said.
