Member of SA BRICS Business Council, Stavros Nicolaou, says Africa needs financial support to strengthen the health infrastructure and be able to procure medicines and vaccines to help fight against pandemics.
He said the international agencies are procuring vaccines and other medical equipment because they are financially stable and have been able to provide medical assistance for their people.
“These lessons were well-learned and will never be forgotten,” he said.
As a build-up to the BRICS Summit, Nicolaou was speaking at the Numolux Group, BRICS African Solutions to Africa’s Health Challenges Seminar in Pretoria on Thursday evening.
The seminar focused on health, pharmaceutical, and regulatory challenges faced by BRICS and African countries.
It also highlighted a need to fight against diseases such as malaria, non-communicable diseases, mental health, and closer institutional cooperation within the health regulatory environment.
Nicolaou insisted that Africa should be given an equal opportunity to equality of resources, pharmaceutical interventions, medicines, and vaccines.
He stated that the following aspects are needed to ensure that the healthcare system of Africa function properly:
- Africa should not experience what it went through during the COVID-19 pandemic, where vaccines and other pharmaceutical interventions were inaccessible to patients
- Local capacities and capabilities solve local problems
- The need for partnerships between those that hold intellectual property and knowledge and African producers must be reinforced - this is in the interest of ensuring health security on the African continent
- Access to diagnostic tests and treatments for NCDs is needed to curb the rise in NCDs.
IOL