Luanda, Angola (PANA) – African Health Ministers have rounded off a two-day meeting in Luanda with an agreement to establish the African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention to avert the high death and sickness associated with severe public health events.
The agreement is part of an overall pledge they made to collaborate to take concrete actions to improve the health of the people in the continent, following the meeting which ended in the Angolan capital Thursday.
They also underscored the urgent need to establish the African Medicines Agency (AMA) to support the Continent´s pharmaceutical industry, improve people’s access to quality medicines and medical products, and help prevent the circulation and consumption of inferior-quality medicines.
In the Luanda Declaration which they adopted after the meeting, the Ministers expressed concern about the numerous challenges facing public health services which continue to hinder Africa´s sustainable socio-economic development.
They agreed to involve every sector (private, public, civil society, partners etc.) to collectively end preventable deaths of mothers and children, prevent the common risks related with non-communicable diseases and work towards universal health coverage to ensure that everyone has access to quality health care.
Speaking at the closing, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Luis Sambo, underscored the importance of partnership and express the hope that the commitments will ”bring us much closer to our goal of improving health outcomes”.
“The continent´s health challenges call for technical excellence, inter-sectoral collaboration and political leadership. I wish to take this opportunity to appeal to you to continue providing leadership and advocate for more resources to the health sector to strengthen health systems. Africa´s health challenges require strong and robust health infrastructure, to sustain the gains and move forward,” Dr. Sambo said.
For his part, the African Union (AU) Commissioner for Social Affairs, Dr Mustapha Kalolo, reiterated his call for stronger collaboration, saying: “The technical capacity of WHO and the convening leverage of the AUC forms a formidable force in our efforts to make Africa a healthy continent.”
In the Luanda Declaration, the delegates acknowledged that universal health coverage can improve people´s health and is critical to Africa´s socio-economic development.
They described the universal health coverage as the way forward for African countries given the prevailing health problems facing the continent.
They also agreed that despite the commendable efforts of African countries to improve maternal and child health, many of them continue to die during pregnancy, childbirth and the post-delivery period, a situation that is made worse by poverty and armed conflicts.
The continent’s health leaders committed themselves to addressing this scourge by putting in place an integrated package of essential actions and services and advocating for adequate resources to address the social, economic and environmental determinants of health.
The meeting also drew attention to the rising tide of noncommunicable diseases and pledged to implement a combination of simple, cost effective individual actions and concerted multi-sectoral national to reduce the major risk factors associated with these diseases.
The Ministers requested the African Union Commission (AUC) and World Health Organisation (WHO) together with all relevant stakeholders, to assist countries to implement and monitor these commitments.
The First Ministers of Health meeting, jointly organised by the AUC, the WHO and the Government of Angola, was attended by over 300 participants.
The second edition of the meeting will be held in Tunisia in April 2016.
