South Sudan and Uganda have agreed and set up a joint cross-border committee to help fight COVID-19 pandemic in both countries.

This was the outcome of a joint meeting held in Nimule town council on Thursday last week.

The meeting was funded by the European Union-Intergovernmental Authority on development (EU-IGAD) COVID-19 response to health and social impacts.

Several leaders from both countries, EU and IGAD officials attended the meeting.

The Director-General for Health in South Sudan, John Rumunu said there is need to urgently organize an information-sharing mechanism on COVID-19 between the leaderships of the two nations to find a way forward on how to jointly fight the pandemic.

“That is why we have called for and arranged this inter-cross border dialogue to foster good coordination between the two sides so that we can work together through sharing of important information and interventions on COVID-19,” he explained.

Rumunu stressed added that it was important for the two sides to form local COVID-19 committees to look into the health issues of locals along the borders and to set up working measures that can generate daily updates on the COVID-19 situations.

The Uganda national entry focal point-to-point officer at the health ministry, Harriet Mayinja, said a joint cross-border committee will enhance public health surveillance and control measures at the local cross-border level.

“The cross border committee will also establish cross-border communications and coordination mechanisms to enable timely information-sharing at the local levels, to ensure proper environmental and health-care conditions for the populations sharing the borders,” she said.

The cross border committee will comprises ten members from the two countries.