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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke, Senior Health Reporter
AS Southern Africa continues to face many public health emergencies, SADC Health Ministers have made a commitment to collaborate in coming up with sustainable solutions to most of the challenges affecting their countries.
This comes as the region is battling an ongoing mpox outbreak and an emerging Marburg virus outbreak, among other diseases such as cholera, measles, HIV, malaria as well as climate change-related disasters.
These have not only strained the countries’ health systems, but have also affected the region’s financial resources.
SADC Ministers of Health and Ministers Responsible for HIV and AIDS spent the past four days identifying and discussing the most pressing issues and came up with solutions that could propel the region towards improved outcomes.
Speaking after a series of closed door meetings in Harare yesterday, Health and Child Care Minister Dr Douglas Mombeshora said the survival of all nations was intertwined.
“I am confident that the decisions we made will assist member states in addressing the health challenges in our region. All the plans we made here, definitely call for dedicated funding for health,” he said.
“The decline in external funding compels us to be responsible for our own health. Increased domestic funding is the way to go. Let us accelerate our health reforms and share experience. Let us continue to work together in addressing key health systems strengthening pillars such as health workforce, strategic information, governance and service delivery innovations.”
Among the issues agreed on, Dr Mombeshora said SADC would come up with a procurement plan for the region within the next three months, which would be discussed at an extraordinary meeting of ministers in February next year.
Commitment was also made to enhance cross-border malaria control to fast-track elimination of the disease.
“We have also taken a decision to accelerate our programmes to deal with non-communicable diseases, because we intend to think of communities more, but also to increase our emergency preparedness so that we don’t get the same effects of Covid-19, which caught us unaware without strengthening our health systems.
“So, health systems strengthening has also been put on the top of priorities, and those decisions have been taken,” Dr Mombeshora added.
The prompt implementation of decisions could pave the way for meaningful progress and demonstrate the region’s collective resolve to combat health challenges.
SADC Deputy Executive Secretary for regional integration Ms Angele N’tumba Makombo acknowledged the multiple health challenges being faced by the region, even as health systems were still recovering from the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said SADC member states were committed to strengthening the health systems by responding to the health challenges as they occurred.
“As you are all aware, member states continue to face multiple and concurrent epidemics such as cholera, Mpox, measles and the threat of Marburg virus disease recently and at the same time the clock towards 2030 is continuously ticking, reminding us about the commitments we have made to end TB, HIV and malaria as part of the targets. In this year, the region has also been affected by El Nino-induced droughts and flooding in a number of member states, exposing our population to food insecurity and malnutrition, especially in children as well as water-borne diseases,” she said.
Online Reporter
Peter Tanyanyiwa