CDC’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Office

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The Eastern Europe and Central Asia region is home to approximately 135 million people and covers an area roughly half the size of the United States. This region consists of various CDC assets, including the CDC regional office and five bilateral CDC country offices.

The regional office provides technical support for programming in ten countries, all of which were a part of the former Soviet Union. The Soviet legacy has resulted in many shared historical, cultural, and bureaucratic characteristics. The geopolitical tensions, most significantly driven by the war in Ukraine, have driven increased volatility across the region.

The regional office was established in 2021 and is located in Tbilisi, Georgia. The United States Government and CDC have benefited from 30 years of diplomatic relations and over 20 years of public health collaboration across the region.  As national health systems across the region continue to emerge from Soviet legacy models for public health services, functions, and workforce development, there is a need for support. This support is essential for robust health security programing to prevent, detect, and respond to the next global health threat. By deploying CDC’s health security expertise in the region, the success of public health programs will advance regional stability, promote foreign policy imperatives to strengthen institutions, promote science, accelerate transitions to sound governance, and counter misinformation.

Countries included in the region:
    • Armenia
    • Azerbaijan
    • Georgia
    • Kazakhstan
    • Kyrgyzstan
    • Moldova
    • Tajikistan
    • Turkmenistan
    • Ukraine
    • Uzbekistan

CDC teams are focused on building core public health capacities and capabilities to respond to public health threats. This collaborative effort is done with our ministry counterparts and partners through a cohesive agency-wide Global Health Strategy and advances health security in the region. In addition to personnel in the region, subject matter experts at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, GA, provide technical support to these offices, as well as to partners across the region.

Key Areas of Focus

The Eastern Europe and Central Asia regional and country offices are focused on responding to health threats by building core public health capacities in:

  • Antimicrobial resistance
  • Countering misinformation and disinformation
  • Data modernization
  • Genomic sequencing capacity
  • Pandemics and emerging disease threats
  • Hepatitis C elimination
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Infectious disease surveillance
  • Laboratory systems and quality assurance
  • Workforce development initiatives (e.g., field epidemiology training, public health emergency management, global laboratory leadership program, informatics, and data science for health)
Regional Goals

CDC and partners coordinate closely and work together on strategic areas that reflect the agency-wide Global Health Strategy and include coordinated partnerships, trained workforce, and prepared systems to achieve the following goals:

  • Goal 1: Enhance existing, and develop new partnerships to improve regional health security coordination, collaboration, and communication
  • Goal 2:  Enhance and expand the public health and cross-sectoral, multidisciplinary workforce ​
  • Goal 3:  Ensure the ability of the region to effectively respond to public health emergencies
  • Goal 4:  Support improvements of national public health institutions ​ 
  • Goal 5:  Strengthen public health and clinical laboratories serving human and animal sectors ​ 
  • Goal 6:  Strengthen surveillance systems to understand disease trends and detect public health threats ​
  • Goal 7:  Promote public health science and research to ensure policy, guidelines and recommendations are based on the best available science ​
  • Goal 8:  Improve the ability to decrease prevalence of vaccine preventable diseases ​
  • Goal 9:  Work towards the elimination of diseases of public health importance