Background The reserve of protective textiles for emergency usage is an important measure in ensuring public health security and enhancing the ability to respond to emergencies. There was a global shortage of protective textiles at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the relatively low level of medical development and the underdeveloped domestic textile industry in many African nations, the lack of emergency protective textiles was particularly severe in those nations, which has had some negative effects on African and global public health security. The study explored possible approaches of cooperation between Africa and China to achieve both security and financial efficiency. Methods With the support of the China Association for Science and Technology's "Belt and Road" International Science and Technology Organization Cooperation Platform Construction Project, a team of scholars from Donghua University of China, Gezira University of Sudan, Moi University of Kenya, and Bahir Dar University of Ethiopia has carried out cooperative research on emergency protective textile reserve system using various methods such as literature review, field research, interviews, and seminars. Conclusions This study analyzed the status of the reserve and supply of protective textile in China and African countries under the emergency conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study proposed a few approaches of collaboration between China and African countries for the reserves of emergency protective textiles, from the perspective of three types of reserve including physical, contractual, and production capacity reserves. Such cooperation based on conditions in China and African is mutually beneficial to China and Africa and is highly valuable to the improvement of global public health security.