South Korea Provides 10 Mln USD to Ethiopia, Africa CDC to Help Prevent COVID-19 - ENA English
South Korea Provides 10 Mln USD to Ethiopia, Africa CDC to Help Prevent COVID-19
Addis Ababa August 8/2020(ENA) The Government of South Korea has decided to provide Ethiopia and African countries with 10 million USD to support COVID-19 response capacity building.
The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Friday.
According to a press release from the Korean Embassy in Addis Ababa, out of the total support, 5 million USD will be provided to the Ministry of Health while the rest five million USD to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
The scope of support includes procurement of equipment and consumables for COVID-19 diagnostic tests, movable negative pressure carrier for ambulances among others.
The support is part of the Korean government’s COVID-19 Comprehensive Emergency Response Program to cooperate with major quarantine partners in the field of health, the press release stated.
South Korean Ambassador to Ethiopia, LIM Hoon-min said on the occasion that Korea is ready to share its experiences and insights with the international community, and Ethiopia is always a top priority partner in its cooperation.
“Ethiopia has chosen as one of major quarantine partners this year for the Comprehensive Emergency Response Program.”
He elaborated that different from simple in-kind contribution, the Program is planned to provide comprehensive support for the purpose of strengthening not only response capability to the COVID-19 but also prevention capability to infectious diseases.
According to the Embassy, besides this support, Korea, both at the government and the private sector level, has provided and is going to provide a total of 77.3 million USD worth of assistance to improve Ethiopia’s capabilities against COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the Korean government will also provide the Africa CDC, an affiliated organization of the African Union (AU) 5 million USD in order to build COVID-19 response capacity of the whole African continent.