Building a Healthier Society

Sino-African health cooperation grows with the completion of the Africa CDC Headquarters building

The new gleaming headquarters building of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) was inaugurated by the African Union Commission (AUC) in January 2023, with the special guest being the new Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who was on his maiden visit to Africa since assuming office.

Located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and seat of the AUC, the construction of the Africa CDC Headquarters is supported by the Chinese government, as a part of its commitments at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held in China in 2018.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Qin said the new Africa CDC building tells the world with irrefutable facts that China has always supported Africa with concrete actions, and China-Africa relations will have an even brighter future.

“It is a new monument built with the traditional friendship and hard work of Chinese and African brothers and sisters,” said Qin.

State-of-the-art health centre

The AUC Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, who shared Qin’s sentiment on Sino-African relations, said that the building is only the visible face of a health cooperation that has its roots in the depths of the relationship.

“China always supports Africa and the completion of the Africa CDC Headquarters building reflects such cooperation,” said Mahamat.

Africa CDC was officially launched in January 2017, a year after its establishment by the 26th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Heads of States and Governments as a specialised technical institution of the AU. It is set to support public health initiatives of AU members and strengthen the capacity of their public health institutions to detect, prevent, control and respond quickly and effectively to disease threats across the continent.

China’s commitments to support Africa’s public health system through the construction of the Africa CDC Headquarters building date back to late 2015. Following a number of agreements, the AU and the Chinese government signed the implementation agreement on the Africa CDC Headquarters building project in July 2020.

The $80-million state-of-the-art Africa CDC Headquarters rests in an area of 90,000 square metres with a total construction area of nearly 40,000 square metres. It includes, among other facilities, a data centre, an emergency operation centre, a laboratory, a resource centre, briefing rooms, training and conference centres, offices, and expatriate apartments.

The AU expects the new headquarters to become one of the best-equipped centres for disease control in Africa. The institution is also set to serve as a platform for AU members to share and exchange knowledge and lessons from public health interventions.

Intergenerational legacy

Ever since China sent its first medical mission to Ethiopia, Mei Gengnian has remained a dignified name in the medical cooperation history of the two countries. Mei was head of the first Chinese medical team to Ethiopia, who died in 1975 in a car accident, while he was serving local communities in Jimma, some 300 km from Addis Ababa. Laid to rest near the spot where he passed away, today his grave is being tended by local community members. Mei’s eldest son Mei Xueqian has followed in his father’s footsteps by joining a medical mission to Ethiopia in 1998.

Close to five decades into Mei’s legacy today, it is common to see Chinese medical personnel serving at Tirunesh Beijing General Hospital, which is also known as Ethio-China Friendship Hospital, in Akaki-Kality neighbourhood in the outskirts of Addis Ababa. Named after Tirunesh Dibaba, an Ethiopian female athlete who won two gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the hospital was built with financial support from the Chinese government at a cost of $12.7 million. Since its inauguration in 2012, the hospital has been serving as a base for Chinese medical team members dispatched from across provinces in China who come to the country and share their expertise.

The Chinese government dispatched its first medical team to Africa in 1963; diplomats see this cooperation in the medical and health area as an important part of Sino-African relations. Besides an all-round cooperation in the health sector over the years, the Sino-African health partnership has taken shape in major public health emergencies, including the fight against malaria, Ebola and COVID-19.

When the Ebola crisis hit West Africa in 2014-2016, China took the initiative to join hands in the fight against the epidemic. This demonstrated the country’s willingness and