Yellen met with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema and other authorities in Lusaka to discuss joint efforts to improve regional health care and other key issues.
A day after her arrival in the southern African nation, Yellen inaugurated the newly built Zambia National Public Health Institute funded by the U.S. The institute will focus of helping the nation better monitor threats to public health while preventing transmission of deadly diseases like COVID-19 and effectively responding to outbreaks.
While addressing media, the U.S. official said health security has been pivotal to relations between the two nations over the past two decades, adding that it is important that public health be prioritized because “the cost of preparedness is lower than the cost of responding to an outbreak once it starts.”
“We have had a long partnership, and I think it’s been a productive one that is important for it to continue,” Yellen said.
Yellen said the U.S. remains committed to improving regional and global health security through its $450 million contribution to the newly launched Pandemic Fund.
Earlier on Monday, she visited Mylan Laboratory, a U.S. firm that employs 75 workers in Zambia and helps distribute antimalarial and antiretroviral treatments.
As Yellen visited facilities Monday, Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, director for the Africa Centers for Disease Control, delivered a live virtual address commending the commitments by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration towards global health.
“Local production is very key to the health security of the continent and by extension, for the whole globe,” Ouma said.
“Investing in well-selected manufacturing facilities for different health products from diagnostics, therapeutics to vaccines is really important for the way in which we are going to be handling outbreaks and, God forbid, another pandemic,” he added.
Following her first stop in Senegal, Yellen will remain in Zambia until Tuesday, when she leaves for South Africa.