Biden administration announces new anti-pandemic partnership

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

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

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

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

The announcement about the strategy comes as countries have struggled to meet an accord on responses to future pandemics. Four years after the coronavirus pandemic, the prospects of a treaty signed by all 194 of the World Health Organization’s members are flailing.

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 Monday.

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

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 in the same family as the one that causes smallpox, creates painful skin lesions. The World Health Organization declared mpox a global emergency in 2022, and there have been more than 91,000 cases spanning across 100 countries to date.