President Joe Biden said there will ‘surely’ be another pandemic, as he announced the US is sending millions of dollars in aid to Africa.

Biden at the start of the US-Africa Business Forum in Washington, DC, said that the US has invested in Africa’s capacity to manufacture its own coronavirus vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. The measures have enabled Africa to ‘meet its own needs and contribute to the global supply chain’, he said.

‘Even as we work to end Covid-19, we continue building stronger health systems and institutions and accelerating efforts to achieve universal health coverage to make sure we’re better prepared to tackle the health challenges including the next pandemic – and there surely will be one,’ said Biden on Wednesday.

The president in his remarks did not name China, where the coronavirus emerged from. But the US has recently made efforts to curb China’s influence in Africa, and Biden’s speech clearly was tailored toward that.

Biden added that his administration’s Millennium Challenge Corporation has announced nearly $1.2billion in investments in Africa since he entered office and that $2.5billion more will be distributed across the African continent in the next three years. The money will go toward areas including renewable energy, agriculture and transportation.

‘I proposed this initiative together with the rest of the G7 to help fill the need for quality, high-standard infrastructure in Africa and in low-income and middle-income countries around the world,’ Biden said.

‘And at the G7 meeting earlier this year, we announced our intention to collectively mobilize $600billion in the next five years.’

Five African nations were not invited to the summit. They include four that the African Union suspended for recent military coups – Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Sudan. The fifth country, Eritrea, has been on poor terms with the US for supporting Ethiopia’s central government in the Tigray War.

Biden told the leaders and officials that the US is ‘all in on Africa’s future’.

‘African success and prosperity is essential for a better future for all of us,’ he said, ‘Not just for Africa.’

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