08 Mar 2023

 African nations have been called upon to act together to accelerate implementation of the Africa Health Strategy 2016-2030.

The Amref Group chief executive officer, Dr Githinji Gitahi, said this during official opening of Africa Health Agenda International Conference (AHAIC) in Kigali, Rwanda on Monday.

He said there was need for a unified Africa agenda to achieve equitable health and address climate change.

Dr Gitahi said Africa must not continue to negotiate country by country, but as a collective to ensure that Africa Union’s New Public Health Order, World Health Organisation (WHO) Triple Billions 2025 target and strategies reflected people’s desires.

He said it was in the power of the African people to shape their own future, adding ‘not only a better future for Africa, but a better future for everyone because we are all as vulnerable as our weakest link.’

He pointed out that Africa was tackling frictions on public health threats and climate change, noting that while the burden of COVID-19 had lessened, recent outbreaks of other diseases such as ebola, marburg and cholera demonstrated that health security was at risk.

Disasters including drought, famine and floods were causing destruction and loss of life across the continent, he added.

In addition to climate crisis, Dr Gitahi indicated that conflicts and other frictions in the continent had resulted in an unprecedented rise in the cost of living, making the African fragile health systems weaker and families desperate.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), he said, had in recent years accounted for a growing share of mortality in the continent.

He pointed out that by 2030, deaths from NCDs were expected to exceed communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional deaths combined.

Dr Gitahi said the climate crisis had increased severe flooding and drought while food insecurity worsened by a record level of internal displacement thereby placing Africa at its worst in decades.

He, therefore, urged African nations to focus, adding that ‘the fate of our continent is in our hands to decide.’

There must be a common continental approach on Africa’s plan for adapting health systems to the climate crisis at COP28, he said.

“Our conversations on the intersection and impact of climate change and health will inform our approach to the Conference of Parties (COP28) in United Arab Emirates in November 2023,” he added.

He also highlighted that the AHAIC was a global health conference, which started in Africa in 2014 by an African for Africa since 2014, to recognise the importance of engagement in critical dialogues of Africans and to inform home-grown solutions to influence global policy changes.

The acting director of Africa Centres of Diseases Control (CDC), Dr Ahmed Ogwell, highlighted that the current dispensation in delivering health to the continent was not sustainable.

Dr Ogwell said all 55 Africa Union member states must work together to address the shared health threats faced in Africa and beyond more holistically.

“We must incorporate a one Health Approach in how we strategise and manage our disease prevention and control efforts,” he said.

Africa CDC, he said, was supporting ministries of Health and National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) to build capacity, while simultaneously improving coordination for the prevention and control of priority diseases across other integral parts of the health sector.Dr Ogwell further said they were also supporting countries to establish and operationalise Public Health Emergency Operations Centres (PHEOCs), as championed by President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia, adding that PHEOCs should be the central coordinating hubs for disease surveillance and response coordination across Africa.

Regarding the effects of global warming and climate change, Dr Ogwell said they were contributing factors to many of the health emergencies and diseases faced on the African continent.

“We have an opportunity for us to plant the tree of African excellence; an opportunity for the African Health Agenda to be discussed on the African continent and an opportunity for innovative ideas to be launched here in Africa for Africa,” said Dr Ogwell. ENDS