Africa-Press – Botswana. Botswana’s ongoing efforts to engage in the manufacturing of medicines and human vaccines could do well with support from African states.
These sentiments were expressed by the director general of the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Dr Jean Kaseya during a courtesy call on President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi at the Office of the President yesterday.
Dr Kaseya said African states should show support by procuring medicines and vaccines from the country as this would be beneficial to the continent.
He praised President Masisi for his visionary leadership in driving Botswana towards the production of medicine and said he would urge African states to offer the country a market.
“Your vision, President Masisi fits into what Africa needs. We need independence from relying on others, and Africa should open up its market, for what is from Botswana, should be for all African states to procure and support our own since we have been heavily reliant on imports,” Dr Kaseya said.
The leadership of Africa CDC, the public health agency of the African Union (AU), established in 2016 by the 26th AU Ordinary Assembly of Heads of State and Government to support the public health initiatives of member states and strengthen capacity to deal with disease threats, has been partaking in the WHO Regional Committee for Africa summit in Gaborone.
President Masisi assured Dr Kaseya and fellow Africa CDC leaders that Botswana would continue to offer support for their work, which from a domestic perspective. included complementing the effort of developing the capacity of the country’s own healthcare system.
He said Botswana had taken ‘baby steps’ towards developing its healthcare ecosystem, including the production of drugs, vaccines and therapy saying the country sought to further strengthen the Botswana Medical Regulatory Authority (BOMRA).
Dr Masisi added that Africa needed to build strong healthcare systems, which include, building human capital, industrial development, and technology, as well as the monitoring, detection and capacity to deal with disease burden along with research and analytics and drawing lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Masisi concurred with Dr Kaseya that the continent needed to be united in building regional synergy around its healthcare regulatory systems.
He added that the work of the Africa CDC should be seamless, rapid without being tied to bureaucracy and overcoming potential language barriers on the continent.
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