Courtesy Photo | Maj. Eads reviews tick specimens collected by the WRAIR-Africa Entomology team.... read more read more
The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research – Africa conducted disease surveillance in support of Justified Accord 2025 from February 10–21 in Kenya.
Justified Accord is U.S. Africa Command's largest exercise in East Africa. The 2025 iteration involved more than 1,500 participants from 20 countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, Morocco, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom. The exercise is designed to strengthen multinational cooperation as well as regional security.
WRAIR-Africa supported the exercise by identifying pathogens in the environment and coordinating with medical personnel to ensure appropriate protective measures. The team conducted daily vector surveillance, collecting mosquitos, sandflies, and ticks for pathogen testing, as well as analyzing wastewater samples.
During the exercise, WRAIR-Africa identified nine major pathogen threats including the bacteria that causes Q fever, the bacteria that causes epidemic typhus, jingman tick virus, and norovirus. The findings were shared with Role 1 Medical assets and health protection personnel to mitigate risks to participating service members.
“By telling the force health protection (FHP) and health service support (HSS) personnel that the pathogen is in the environment, you can keep the soldiers safe,” said Maj. John Eads, Chief of Entomology at WRAIR-Africa. “Something like norovirus is a particular threat – that’s the pathogen that takes out cruise ships all the time because of how easily it spreads. Identifying it before it spreads is essential to getting preventative measure in place and keeping service members healthy.”
WRAIR-Africa’s role in the exercise was essential to protecting force health, but it also provides a second major benefit: an opportunity to learn.
In addition to surveillance, WRAIR-Africa used the exercise as an opportunity to assess support needs for large-scale combat operations. This included evaluating the effectiveness of tools such as rapid diagnostic tests that don’t require cold-chain storage, which can be limited in austere environments.
“Participation in Justified Accord embeds us with the warfighter so we can see where there are gaps,” said Eads. “During and after the exercise, we ask: what products are necessary in large-scale combat operations? It’s an opportunity to determine how WRAIR-Africa can further support force health protection and Health Service Support.”
Following the exercise, WRAIR-Africa compiled a report to inform future surveillance operations and refine its support strategies for forward-deployed environments.
| Date Taken: | 03.26.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.26.2025 11:21 |
| Story ID: | 493770 |
| Location: | KE |
| Web Views: | 71 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, WRAIR-Africa protects force health at Justified Accord ‘25, by Zeke Gonzalez, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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