The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Michelle McConnell, head of the East Asia-Pacific regional office of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will visit Seoul on the 6th for meetings and working-level consultations to strengthen global health security cooperation.
Director McConnell has served as a consolidation channel for working-level and policy cooperation between the two agencies through ongoing exchanges with the agency.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and the CDC have been cooperating on infectious disease forecasting and analysis, laboratory capacity building, antibiotic resistance, and biosafety. At this meeting, the agenda will include ▲ this year's global health security cooperation plan ▲ public health data management ▲ pathogen surveillance systems ▲ cooperation measures in biosafety.
In particular, sharing information on high-profile infectious disease issues such as influenza and Nipah virus, along with measures to strengthen pathogen surveillance and early detection systems, will be key agenda items. Cooperation on sharing and managing public health data in the Asia-Pacific region will also be discussed.
Lim Seung-gwan, commissioner of the agency, said, "Since the opening of the CDC's Asia-Pacific regional office, cooperation between the two agencies has expanded to a more structured phase."
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency plans to use this consultation as an opportunity to expand not only bilateral cooperation with the U.S. CDC but also multilateral cooperation frameworks with Asia-Pacific countries to strengthen global health security collaboration.