Biden launches 50-nation partnership against pandemics

The Global Health Security Strategy aims to help identify and respond to diseases to prevent another crisis.

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s administration will help 50 countries identify and respond to infectious diseases, with the goal of preventing pandemics like the COVID-19 outbreak that suddenly halted normal life around the globe in 2020.

U.S. government officials will offer support in the countries, most of them in Africa and Asia, to develop better testing, surveillance, communication and preparedness for such outbreaks in those countries.

The strategy will help “prevent, detect and effectively respond to biological threats wherever they emerge,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday.

The Global Health Security Strategy, the president said, aims to protect people worldwide and “will make the United States stronger, safer, and healthier than ever before at this critical moment.”

The announcement of the strategy comes as countries have struggled to meet a worldwide accord on responses to future pandemics.

Four years after the COVID-19 pandemic, the prospects for a pandemic treaty signed by all 194 of the World Health Organization’s members are dim.

The Biden administration plans to move forward with its new strategy to prepare the world for the next pandemic, regardless of whether a treaty is hammered out, a senior administration official told reporters on Monday.

The U.S. program will rely on several government agencies — including the State Department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health and Human Services Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development — to help countries refine their responses to infectious diseases.

Congo is one country where work has already begun. The U.S. government is helping Congo with its response to an mpox virus outbreak, including with immunizations.

Mpox, a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox, creates painful skin lesions. Last year, the World Health Organization declared it a global emergency, and there have been more than 91,000 cases spanning 100 countries to date.

The White House released a website Tuesday with the names of the participating countries. Biden administration officials are aiming to get 100 countries signed on to the program by the end of the year.

The U.S. has devoted billions of dollars, including money raised from private donations, to the effort.

Biden is asking for $1.2 billion for global health safety efforts in his yearly budget proposal to Congress.