Roundup: China, U.S. vow continued support to operationalization of Africa CDC

A tripartite meeting involving the African Union (AU), China and the U.S. has deliberated on the cooperation towards the operationalization of the African Center for Disease Control (CDC).

The tripartite meeting was held on Thursday at the AU Headquarters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, whereby it emphasized on the need to further strengthen cooperation to early operationalization of the Africa CDC.

Zhang Xiangchen, deputy international trade representative with the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), has exchanged views with Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko, AU Commissioner of Social Affairs, and Kary Hintz-Tate, Deputy Chief of U.S Mission to AU, on ways of strengthening cooperation to jointly establishing the Africa CDC.

The meeting was to implement the consensus reached between China and U.S. during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to U.S. in September, 2015, whereby the two sides plan to cooperate with AU and its members in establishing Africa CDC.

It was also set to implement the concrete outcomes of the 2016 China-U.S. Annual Development Cooperation Meeting to jointly support the establishment of Africa CDC.

The meeting emphasized that the establishment of Africa CDC should be dominated by Africa, and China and U.S. would provide support of infrastructure and capacity building.

They provide assistance to Africa CDC in infrastructure construction, equipment, information system, expertise, and professional training while sharing also their experiences in CDC establishment and operation management.

The meeting also underlined that China and U.S. should strengthen coordination and consultation to finalize the detailed cooperation plan on Africa CDC to earlier realization of the initiative, and which in turn will have significant contribution to Africa's public health activities.

In his remarks on the occasion, the AU Commissioner has commended China and the U.S. for their continued support to the realization of Africa CDC.

"Allow me to seize this single opportunity to express the gratitude of the Commission to the People's Republic of China and to the United States of America for their permanent support for the operationalization of the Africa CDC following your unprecedented valuable assistance in the fight against the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa in 2014 - 2015. The African Union commission continues to be proud of this collaboration," said the commissioner.

"As China and the U.S. are aware of Africa's pains, struggles and trials in lifting the continent's people from the quagmire of infectious and other diseases, the AU Commission welcomes this partnership and hopes that this will enable us to accelerate our efforts of building and rebuilding health systems and enhanced disease surveillance and response," he noted.

Both the Chinese and the U.S. officials have expressed the commitment of their respective countries to continued support towards the operationalization of Africa CDC.

China and U.S. have signed their respective bilateral cooperation MoUs on Africa CDC with AU, and have sent their expert teams for such preparatory work as the site selection for Africa CDC and its regional collaboration centers.

From February to April this year, public health experts from China and U.S. conducted joint professional training in Ethiopia for nine trainees from the Africa CDC.

It was in January 2015 that the AU Assembly officially passed the decision for the establishment of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Endit