Overview
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opened a new country office in Manila, Philippines, in May 2022 to strengthen its partnership with the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) and advance shared health priorities. The new office will provide technical assistance and support services to enhance the Philippines’ efforts in preventing, treating, and caring for HIV and tuberculosis, aiming to curb these epidemics. The Philippines has seen the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in Southeast Asia/Pacific, with newly diagnosed cases increasing sevenfold from 2010 to 2018, leading to its inclusion in the 2020 PEPFAR Asia region program. The CDC has a long history of collaboration with the Philippines on public health, including a 2005 cooperative agreement with the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) and DOH to establish an influenza surveillance network. Recently, the CDC and DOH signed a Memorandum of Understanding to boost collaboration on public health emergency preparedness, and the prevention and control of vaccine-preventable, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. This new office underscores the commitment of both countries to work together on global health security.
