In 2017, following the 2014–16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the African Union launched the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to help prepare the continent for epidemics and pandemics. This is a blueprint for transforming the continent into a global powerhouse, laid out in 2013. It will thereby be unable to achieve the development goals encapsulated in the African Union’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want. If the continent does not work towards guaranteeing self-sufficiency, it will fail to address the infectious-disease threats of the twenty-first century. It could sufficiently invest in commodities to ensure its health security, and position itself as a world leader in fighting infectious diseases. In principle, Africa could build on the astonishing gains it has made in surveillance and public-health responsiveness to outbreaks in recent years. In our view, leaders of the 55 African Union member states face a stark choice. In 20, more than 120 disease outbreaks were reported on the continent 1. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed how easily international cooperation and multilateral agreements can dissolve, especially in the face of a global crisis - and just how vulnerable this dependence leaves Africa. Since the 1960s, when many African countries gained independence, the continent has largely depended on the outside world for its health-security commodities: diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, as well as personal protective equipment and other medical supplies. Now, in 2022, as vast vaccination campaigns have enabled the global north to gain some control over the pandemic, Africa lags behind. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Africa’s rapid and coordinated response, informed by emerging data, was remarkable. Researchers receive diagnostics training at the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) in Ede, Nigeria.
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