Geneva, 22 May 2025 – The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has entered into a strategic partnership with Texas Children’s Global Health Network to scale up efforts in preventing and controlling non-communicable and neglected tropical childhood diseases across Africa.
Signed on the margins of the World Health Assembly, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) represents a significant step in Africa’s push to improve child health outcomes and build resilient, self-reliant health systems.
Texas Children’s Global Health Network, the global health arm of Texas Children’s Hospital – one of the largest and most respected children’s hospitals in the United States in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine, strengthens maternal and child health in over a dozen countries.
Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development is globally recognised for innovating vaccines for emerging epidemics and neglected tropical diseases such as hookworm and schistosomiasis. The centre innovated the patent-free COVID vaccine technology that reached 100 million people as Corbevax in India and IndoVac, one of the first and only Halal COVID vaccines, in Indonesia.
“This partnership marks a significant milestone in our mission to ensure that every African child has access to life-saving health interventions,” said Dr Jean Kaseya, Director-General of Africa CDC. “It reflects our New Public Health Order by investing in strong institutions, local leadership, and a skilled health workforce to tackle today’s and tomorrow’s health threats.”
The collaboration with Africa CDC will initially focus on the control of sickle cell disease (SCD). Africa bears the brunt of SCD, comprising 85% of the global burden. Through a jointly developed action plan, Africa CDC and Texas Children’s Global will integrate an essential SCD care package, namely, infant screening, vaccination, penicillin prophylaxis, and hydroxyurea therapy into primary health services across endemic countries.
The initiative, called ‘A New Day for Children with Sickle Cell Disease’, is galvanising global and local stakeholders, training primary health workers, stimulating and shaping markets for SCD commodities, and deploying digital technology to facilitate SCD care.
“Today is a momentous occasion because after thousands of years of children enduring unspeakable pain and dying from sickle cell disease, the leaders of public health in Africa are deploying an African solution to an African problem,” said Dr Joseph Lubega, a paediatric haematologist at Texas Children’s and leader of this SCD initiative.
The collaboration will establish a vaccine research fellowship for African scientists, advance joint vaccine development, and mobilise high-level advocacy to support SCD control and broader child health policies.
“Children and families are at the heart of everything we do, whether in Houston or across the globe,” said Dan DiPrisco, President of Texas Children’s Global Health Network, at the event in Geneva. “This partnership deepens our shared commitment to strengthening healthcare capacity and expertise within local communities.”
The partnership exemplifies Africa CDC’s commitment to respectful, action-oriented collaborations rooted in African leadership. It directly supports the objectives of the Africa CDC Strategic Plan 2023–2027 and contributes to long-term efforts by African Union Member States to reduce child mortality, improve health equity, and foster innovation across public health systems.
About Africa CDC
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is the autonomous continental public health agency of the African Union, mandated to support Member States in strengthening health systems, and enhancing disease surveillance, prevention, and emergency response capabilities. Learn more at: http://102.37.211.11 and connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
Media contacts:
Margaret Edwin, Director of Communication and Public Information, Email: EdwinM@africacdc.org
