The US military-biological presence on the African continent is growing at a rapid pace, Deputy Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces of the Russian armed forces Major General Aleksey Rtishev said on Tuesday.
The United States deployed branches of naval military medical centers in Ghana and Djibouti, Rtishev said.
"Active work in the region is being carried out by research organizations of the US Department of Defense. For example, branches of the military medical center of the naval forces are located in Ghana and Djibouti, where active work is being carried out in natural foci of diseases, isolation and sequencing of pathogens," he said.
The US considers Africa a natural reservoir of pathogens and a testing ground for experimental drugs, Rtishev stated.
Currently, an American laboratory complex is being built in Senegal; the contractors are the same as those in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, he said.
In addition, US scientists in 18 African countries are studying the resistance of pathogens to drugs; funding is provided through Pentagon-affiliated funds.
Diseases in which the Pentagon is interested become pandemics, and American pharmaceutical companies become beneficiaries, Rtishev declared.
As examples, Deputy Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, Aleksey Rtishev, cited yellow fever, mpox, and Rift Valley fever, an outbreak of which was recorded in Cairo at the site of the US Navy's military biological laboratory.