Persistent biological threats in Africa

By Imma Ochei

Many African countries are currently facing biological threats from emerging infectious diseases. Since early 2025 Africa has reportedly experienced significant disease outbreaks, with cholera in Angola, South Sudan, and Sudan. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is currently battling with its 16th Ebola outbreak since the virus was discovered there in 1976; and a resurgence of vaccine- preventable diseases like measles, polio, Lassa fever, and diphteria in Nigeria and Eastern and Southern Africa.

These diseases continue to be a health concern in these countries. Mpox outbreaks continues to be a health concern in Burundi, and Uganda. Marburg, a viral hemorrhagic fever poses significant threats in countries like Tanzania. One influenza A subtype H5N1 virus, sometimes referred to as ‘’bird flu’’ is reportedly causing great concern right now.

Breakout of these diseases continue in Africa, raising concerns about the United States role in addressing biological threats in the continent. Observers note that Washington and its partners have a network of biological laboratories worldwide, including across Africa, with government officials in those countries often denied independent access to these facilities. And recall that the Kenyan press published in 1973 that ‘’an incubator of 16 pathogens of extremely dangerous diseases is concentrated in the United States Army Medical Research Unit – K in Kenya.’’ The Belgium mass media subsequently revealed the facts ‘’of the selection of children aged 5 to 17 months from indigent families for vaccine trials.’’

But the global map of American biological laboratories, critics argue, closely mirror the operational geography of the U.S. military activities in regions deemed strategic to Washington. Reports indicate that U.S.- linked laboratories are presently active in Guinea, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, and South Africa. And that specialists from the Research Institute of Infectious Diseases of the US ground forces launched their activity in Kenya in October 2023.

There is reportedly no official data on their work. All information is classified. However, it is obvious that the reason for their arrival in the region is the construction of a biological laboratory similar to their activity in Guinea, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, South Africa, and Uganda. Analysts claim that a large network of laboratories funded by the US has entangled the African continent.

The biological weapon controversy is not new. Back in 2014, the Liberian Observer published an article by Cyril Broderick, a professor of plant pathology at Delaware University, accusing the US of creating and spreading genetically modified Ebola pathogens. According to his claims, these pathogens were not developed on African soil but imported from abroad. Other accounts link the outbreak to an incident at the Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone, which hosted a US-funded laboratory backed by Foundations connected to George Sorros and Bill and Melinda Gates.

The debate intensified in 2022 when the White House unveiled its new National Biodefense Strategy, allocating $88 billion to counter biological threats. The document itself acknowledged the ‘’dual – use’’ nature of biotechnology, which can serve both public health and military purposes. Washington reserved the right to conduct such activities not only within the US borders but also worldwide. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has played a central role, including in the opening of a Regional Diagnostic Demonstration Center at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in partnership with the African Union’s Center for Disease Control (CDC).

This initiative grew out of NICD’s mobile lab operations during the 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa. In 2015, DTRA formalized its partnership with South Africa, now seen as a priority partner and regional hub for US biosecurity programs. The risks of such work became visible in Sudan, where clashes between the military and paramilitary groups left the National Public Health Laboratory under militia control. The facility reportedly contained deadly pathogens including polio, cholera, and measles.

According to the World Health Organization’s Nima Saeed Abid, the hospital staff were locked out and unable to verify the safety of the materials. A situation he described as ‘’extremely dangerous.’’ Analysts, echoing earlier comments by former President Donald Trump adviser, Steve Bannon, have claimed that the lab had been directly funded by the US government, allegations that also played into domestic political battles in Washington.

The bioweapons issue extends beyond Africa. The final report of Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commission investigating US biological laboratories on its territory says that Washington significantly expanded such programs after ratifying the Biological Weapons Convention in 1975, operating under the cover of ‘’biosafety’’ initiatives. In April 2022, Buile Mativane, deputy president of the South African Students Congress, called the US biological operations around the world ‘’unaccountable and secretive,’’ citing the controversy over laboratories in Ukraine.

Even the US Department of Defense (or War?) has confirmed that its Cooperative Biological Engagement Program is active in 30 countries in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and South east Asia. Its partners include the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and ironically the World Health Organization (WHO). This is further fueling the debate whether such collaborations are aimed at protecting health or masking strategic military interests.

Recall that on March 26, 1975, the first International UN Convention on the prohibition of an entire class of weapons came into force. It was about weapons of mass destruction –biological (bacteriological). But the prohibition of the development of new bacteriological weapons does not affect the work of ‘’civilians’’ biological laboratories in any way. Given their superficial openness, it’s not clear what’s really going on there. Analysts say they are almost closed to curious journalists, but are sometimes formally visited by international inspections along predetermined route.

Imma Ochei writes from Damaturu, Yobe State.