Jean Kaseya

Jean Kaseya is the Director-General of Africa CDC (the African Union's continental disease-control body), a role he has held since 2022. He is a Congolese physician and public-health professional with a background spanning clinical medicine, health systems, and global-health governance. Prior to leading Africa CDC, Kaseya held senior roles at the African Development Bank and the WHO Africa Regional Office, giving him direct experience of the institutional dynamics between continental and international health governance.

Since taking the Director-General role, Kaseya has pursued a strategy of converting Africa CDC from a technical coordination body into an independently authoritative continental actor. This has involved expanding Africa CDC's laboratory architecture (the ARILAC AMR programme launched on 6 May 2026 is one element), building out rapid-response surge capacity, and establishing a pattern of public declarations that operate on a continental rather than WHO-driven timetable. The first instance of this pattern came in August 2024 during the Mpox clade Ib emergency, when Kaseya declared a continental Public Health Emergency of Continental Security two days before WHO's Emergency Committee met.

Kaseya declared a continental emergency for the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak on Saturday 16 May 2026, twenty-four hours before WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued the PHEIC, and ahead of any formal statement from the DRC Ministry of Health. His stated rationale: 'Given the high population movement between affected areas and neighbouring countries, rapid regional coordination is essential.' Africa CDC's 15 May coordination call, which Kaseya convened, grouped DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan with WHO, UNICEF, the Pandemic Fund, the African Medicines Agency, and US CDC.

On 19 May, Kaseya publicly opposed the US entry ban on nationals of DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan, calling the restrictions punitive and contrary to WHO Temporary Recommendations. At the Africa CDC donor summit on 26 May, pledges reached nearly $500 million against a $319 million six-month target (57% above the ask). On 17 June 2026, the Pandemic Fund Governing Board accredited Africa CDC as an Implementing Entity — the first African Union institution and the first continental public health agency anywhere in the world to receive direct-implementation status, allowing Africa CDC to receive and spend Pandemic Fund money without routing it through WHO or the World Bank. This was followed on 18 June by an African Union High-Level Meeting that mobilised $910 million in Ebola pledges.

With the outbreak at 1,094 confirmed cases and 277 deaths by 24 June, and the isolation rate falling to 35%, Kaseya warned publicly that the toll could exceed the 2014-16 West Africa epidemic that killed more than 11,000. His response architecture — declare first, convene partners, oppose external restrictions, mobilise financing ahead of the WHO cycle — is now an established feature of post-2024 global health governance, shifting the effective centre of continental outbreak authority from Geneva to Addis Ababa.