The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is opening its first regional office in a developed nation, with the post in Japan set to enhance its work with allies on disease monitoring amid rising geopolitical tensions with China.
“This region is incredibly important,” CDC Director Mandy Cohen said in an interview in Tokyo on Monday. “It’s important for us to be able to share information quickly to jointly invest in health security platforms and capacity.”
As the world moves to living with Covid-19, health experts are looking at lessons learned from the pandemic to prepare for the next threat. While the past four years have highlighted the need for research, technology development and robust health-care systems, deficiencies in information-sharing have emerged as a major flash point between the U.S. and China.
Washington has long criticized Beijing for not being forthcoming about the earliest days of the initial Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan. No definitive cause has ever been pinned down, but the U.S. has concluded two plausible origins: The virus emerged in animals and spread to humans, or that it sprang from an incident at a lab. Chinese officials say they participate in work that is based on science and have shared information with the World Health Organization.
Cohen emphasized the new CDC office’s focus is on health security. But the post is also likely to take on an important role in advancing U.S. national interests.