The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a grant of $27.33 million to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to deal with coronavirus infections across the continent.
The grant agreement was signed on Friday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa by Amira Elfadil Mohammed, Commissioner for Social Affairs, African Union Commission and Dr Abdul Kamara, Ethiopia Country Manager, African Development Bank.
Awarded under three key components – technical assistance and capacity building (US$19.33 million), institutional support (US$7 million) and contribution to the African Union COVID-19 Response Fund (US$ 1 million) – the grant is to support implementation of the Africa Joint Continental Strategy for COVID-19 Outbreak.
It will enable Africa CDC to provide technical assistance and capacity building support in combating the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigating its impact in 37 African Development Fund eligible African Union Member States.
“The fight against COVID-19 is far from being over”, said H.E. Amira Elfadil Mohammed.
“This generous financial support from the African Development Bank will help strengthen the capacity of Africa CDC to respond to the COVID-19 and future pandemics. It will help improve the capacity of National Public Health Institutes of Member States, support evidence-based epidemic intelligence, strengthen infection prevention and control, and support the Regional Economic Communities”.
“The expected outcome from the Bank’s collaboration with the Africa Union is a stronger Africa CDC able to rapidly coordinate emergency assistance across Africa, particularly in low income member countries, beyond the current COVID-19 response, working in collaboration with other development partners, including those in the private sector”, said Dr Kamara.
In February 2020, Africa CDC developed a continental strategy to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed to enhance cooperation, collaboration, coordination and communication while preventing severe illness and death and minimizing social disruption and economic consequences due to the pandemic.
The strategy was validated by the African ministers of health in February and endorsed by the Bureau of Heads of State and Government in March 2020.
Although Africa has not recorded a very high number of COVID-19 cases and deaths as in other continents, the impact of the pandemic has been very high on the continent, exerting intense pressure on the already fragile health system and adversely affecting the socioeconomic situation on the continent.
MG/abj/APA