- Effort aimed at improving disease surveillance and preventing threats to global health
- Fifty countries will participate in closing preparedness and response gaps READ
- MORE: Avian flu detected in person who had contact with infected COW
President Joe Biden’s administration will help 50 countries identify and respond to infectious diseases, with the goal of preventing pandemics like the COVID-19 outbreak.
Federal officials will work with countries to develop better testing, surveillance, communication and preparedness for such shoots in those countries to help “effectively respond to biological threats wherever they arise.”
He strategy announcement It comes as countries have struggled to reach global agreement on responses to future pandemics.
The program will rely on the State Department, CDC, HHS, and the Agency for International Development (USAID) to help countries refine their response to infectious diseases.
President Joe Biden announced the cooperative initiative with 50 countries to close preparedness gaps and improve global national security threatened by biological weapons and health threats.
The White House on Tuesday will publish a website with the names of the countries participating in the program.
Biden officials are seeking to have 100 countries sign up for the program by the end of the year.
The 50 countries involved are more than 19.
The United States has dedicated billions of dollars to this effort. Biden, a Democrat, requests $1.2 billion for global health security efforts in his annual budget proposal to Congress.
Meanwhile, four years into the coronavirus pandemic, the prospects for a pandemic treaty signed by all 194 members of the World Health Organization They are agitating.
Cooperation among the 50 countries “to ensure that they are better able to prevent, detect and respond to threats to global health security.”
Over the next five years, the United States will work with these 50 partners “to build, further strengthen and maintain a level of demonstrated capability in at least five [global health security] areas.”
The Biden Administration oversaw much of the Covid vaccine rollout, which saved millions of American lives. But Covid-19 will not be the last of the public health obstacles the administration will face.
Biden’s pandemic approval rating shown around 2022. Another 57 percent of respondents to a new Politico-Morning Consult said they disapproved of President Joe Biden’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Bird flu is increasing across the country, infecting poultry and cows after the virus was able to jump from the former to the latter.
The second person infected with bird flu was reported earlier this month after contracting it from a cow.
The CDC maintains the overall health threat is low, but administration officials said they are “closely monitoring the situation.”
Former health officials said they were not comforted by the assurances given by the government, highlighting how the Trump Administration downplayed fears about Covid in the early days of the pandemic.