Joe Biden unveils new partnership with 50 countries to stifle future pandemics

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 about the strategy comes as countries have struggled to meet a worldwide accord on responses to future pandemics. Four years after the coronavirus pandemic, the prospects of a pandemic 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 or not, a senior administration official told reporters on Monday.

The US programme will rely on several government agencies – including the US State Department, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Health and Human Services and the US Agency for International Development, or USAID – to help countries refine their infectious disease response.

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

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

The White House on Tuesday released a website with the names of the countries that are taking part in the programme.

Biden officials are seeking to get 100 countries signed onto the programme by the end of the year.

The US has devoted billions of dollars, including money raised from private donations, to the effort. Biden, a Democrat, is asking for US$1.2 billion for global health safety efforts in his yearly budget proposal to Congress.