The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) and Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) have been partnering in a long-term project to expand critical public health capacity in Sierra Leone. This partnership started during the Ebola epidemic and continues to this day with COVID-19.

The 2014-2015 West Africa Ebola virus epidemic, the largest since the identification of the virus, did not spare Sierra Leone. The coastal nation, with a population of nearly eight million, reported more than 14,000 cases and nearly 4,000 deaths.

At the beginning of the epidemic in 2014, China CDC sent a group of their own public health experts to Sierra Leone to help with the response. Chinese public health experts began working with leaders of MoHS to develop critical laboratory capacity.

This first collaboration led to the creation of the Sierra Leone China Friendship Biological Safety Laboratory or “Jui Lab” in Jui, Freetown. Jui Lab, a fixed Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) laboratory, was built in just 87 days and became active in the detection of Ebola on March 11, 2015. 

When the epidemic ended later that year, Sierra Leone’s MoHS and China CDC launched a long-term technical cooperation project which is still ongoing. It entered its third phase in January 2021. 

The project aims to enhance Sierra Leone’s capacity for the surveillance, prevention and control of infectious diseases and to support the development of the National Public Health Agency (NPHA), a structure under the supervision of MoHS, which will become the country’s national public health institute. The NPHA is currently running the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), laboratory, risk communication, and surveillance.

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