The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a commitment of $20 million in immediate, flexible funding to Africa CDC in support of COVID-19 response efforts.

The funding will support Africa CDC's ongoing efforts to address the pandemic; to date, it has distributed more than ten million test kits across its fifty-five member nations. Supported by a $100 million public-private partnership, the organization also expanded the Institute of Pathogen Genomics, which uses cutting-edge technology to follow the development of variants on the continent and helps policy makers decide based on evidence how to contain them. According to the Gates Foundation, the Africa CDC has the infrastructure to send teams to manage hot spots, deliver personal protective equipment and treatments, slow the spread of the disease, and save lives — but lacks sufficient funding and adequate supply of commodities to deliver vital services at scale.

The latest grant brings to $50 million the total the foundation has committed to Africa CDC since it was founded in 2017.

The funding "will help to fill the most important resource gaps for pandemic response efforts, but a funding crunch remains," Gates Foundation Africa director Cheikh Oumar Seydi wrote in a blog post. "Every dollar that the Africa CDC and other key partners in the response don't have represents a patient who goes unprotected, undiagnosed, or untreated....In the short term, there is a third wave of COVID-19 on the continent, and wealthy nations have another chance to renew their commitment to collaboration and global equity by supporting the response."