By Isaac Akugizibwe

KIU, Main Campus – KIU Vice-Chancellor Dr. Mouhamad Mpezamihigo is among the keynote speakers in yet another global conference - the ‘’Fair Ethical Data Records Deployment in Health Facilities in Africa,’’ - a hybrid conference organized by VODAN-Africa, scheduled for today, Wednesday 20th April, 2022 between 16:00 and 18:00 CET.

Prof.Dr. Mouhamed Mpezamihigo also doubles as the chairman of the Virus Outbreak Data Network (VODAN-AFRICA). He will be joined by Prof. Francisca Oladipo, the Executive Coordinator of VODAN- Africa to deliver the opening remarks at 16:15 CET.
VODAN-Africa is a data network that seeks to enable access to critical data needed from Africa to fight COVID-19. 

The initiative was inspired by the experience from the Liberia Ebola Virus outbreak in 2014:  Early detection requires contact tracing and inclusion of the most vulnerable is critical to the prevention and control effort, but this has proven to be a major challenge.

Research funding into the VODAN Project started two years ago by a collaboration between KIU and Leiden University Medical Center of Leiden University in the Netherlands. 

Since then, they have also started a collaboration with Stanford University, particularly the Centre for Expanded Data Annotation and Retrieval (CEDAR).

VODAN-Africa is a collaboration of universities in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, Nigeria, Liberia, and Tunisia. They have expanded to include South Africa, Zambia, Burkina Faso, Sudan, and Ghana.