The United States Army
04/18/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 04/18/2025 03:24
WRAIR-Africa protects force health at Justified Accord ‘25
[Link] From left to right: Col. Gerald Kellar, Maj. John Eads, and Maj. Luis Pow Sang collect waste water from sewers at the Counter Insurgency, Terrorism, and Stability Operations Center during Exercise Justified Accord. (Photo Credit: Courtesy ) VIEW ORIGINAL
Back to U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF)
NAIROBI, Kenya - The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research - Africa conducted disease surveillance in support of Justified Accord 2025 from Feb. 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.
[Link] Maj. Eads and his team identify larvae of the Anopheles mosquito, the vector for malaria parasites, near the Justified Accord cantonment area. (Photo Credit: Courtesy) VIEW ORIGINAL
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."
[Link] Maj. Eads reviews tick specimens collected by the WRAIR-Africa Entomology team. (Photo Credit: Courtesy) VIEW ORIGINAL
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.
[Link] Maj. Luis Pow Sang, Military Chief of Microbiology, performs initial validation and testing of BioFire film array for use in real-time exercise support. (Photo Credit: Courtesy) VIEW ORIGINAL
"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.
About Justified Accord
Justified Accord is U.S. Africa Command's largest exercise in East Africa. Led by U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF), and hosted in Kenya, Djibouti and Rwanda, this year's exercise will incorporate personnel and units from 23 nations and five observer countries. This multinational exercise builds readiness for the U.S. joint force, prepares regional partners for UN and AU mandated missions, and increases multinational interoperability in support of humanitarian assistance, disaster response and crisis response.
Justified Accord content can be found on the official Justified Accord DVIDS feature page.
About SETAF-AF
SETAF-AF provides U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Army Europe and Africa a dedicated headquarters to synchronize Army activities in Africa and scalable crisis-response options in Africa and Europe.
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