Africa must achieve health sovereignty before next pandemic

The first reports of an unknown respiratory infection spreading in Wuhan, China, came during the quiet days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve in 2019. At the time, I was director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control, the African Union’s public health agency, and was trying to recharge after months spent fighting a deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo. But, recognizing the severity and urgency of this new virus, I summoned the Africa CDC team back to headquarters in Addis Ababa. The Africa CDC had never confronted a crisis of this scale.

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