Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps she plans to take to support the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention with its planned transition to become a public health agency with greater administrative autonomy from the African Union Commission by July 2022.

The UK is supporting the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) by providing financial and technical assistance. We have provided £20 million to the African Union (AU)/Africa CDC's Covid-19 response fund. The UK Public Health Security Agency (UKPHSA) has one full time adviser embedded in Africa CDC and the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team has four technical experts working remotely with Africa CDC to support the AU's COVID-19 response. In addition, the DHSC/UKPHSA New Variant Assessment Platform is providing technical support to build Africa CDC's genomic sequencing capability as a regional centre for genomic sequencing. The UK is also providing technical assistance to support the AU/Africa CDC's Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing to implement a roadmap for African vaccine manufacturing. I plan to meet the Director of Africa CDC, Dr John Nkengasong, again later this month and will discuss UK support to Africa CDC and its transition to an autonomous Health Agency.