Sustainable health systems

Lessons should be learned to strengthen the capacity of countries to respond to public health emergencies, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ethiopia’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs and candidate for the next WHO director general. “Therefore, a key priority must be the development of resilient and robust global and local health systems capable of preventing, detecting and responding to public health emergencies,” he stressed.

Ghebreyesus believes China can help improve African countries’ capacity for independent and sustainable development in the health sector. “As China is taking the lead in the manufacturing sector, it can help strengthen the pharmaceutical production capacity in African countries,” he told Chinafrica. “This will help address medicine shortage in Africa and make essential medicines more accessible and affordable,” he added.

Thanks to its advances in research and development and the capability of producing high-quality and low-cost medicines and vaccines, China can now play a unique role in supporting African health development and make a positive impact in the developing world.

An example is Humanwell Pharmaceutical Africa, part of Humanwell Healthcare Group, a Chinese leading healthcare solutions provider, which built the first modern medicine production plant in Mali in 2009 in collaboration with the China-africa Development Fund.

“In order to pool our strengths and specialties and promote cooperation, 20 Chinese and African hospitals from each side will be linked through the sister hospital initiative,” said Feng Yong, Deputy Director General of the Department of International Cooperation of NHFPC.

Public health is among the 10 major China-africa cooperation plans for 2016-18 set at the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-africa Cooperation held in late 2015. In the post-ebola era, China is still providing assistance and support in the establishment of disease control and prevention systems at regional and national levels to reinforce laboratory and diagnostic capabilities.

These include a research center for tropical diseases in Sierra Leone, a center for disease control and prevention (CDC) in the African Union Headquarters in Ethiopia and five regional CDCS in Kenya, Zambia, Nigeria, Egypt and Gabon, which will reinforce the surveillance, monitoring and response capacity of African countries to public health emergencies. Comments to liujian@chinafrica.cn