The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) announced Friday that it has signed a grant agreement with Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to strengthen its capacity to alleviate public health crises in the African region.

Under the agreement, KDCA will spend 4.8 billion won ($3.6 million) over the next five years for this project.

This agreement builds on the memorandum of understanding and joint action plan signed between the two organizations in April 2022, which is part of the official development assistance (ODA) projects to deal with Infectious diseases in Africa.

Specifically, KDCA will cooperate with Africa CDC to establish infectious disease laboratories and infectious disease surveillance systems in Africa.

"KDCA's experience in dealing with infectious diseases is highly relevant to the major projects carried out by Africa CDC, and we look forward to building a system to prepare for future infectious disease pandemics in Africa," said Jee Young-mee, Commissioner of the KDCA.

"We hope that the signing of this grant agreement will lead to further cooperation between Korea and Africa in the field of disease control and various projects to strengthen each other's capacity to respond to infectious diseases."