Johannesburg – Africa shoulders 25% of the global disease burden but is served by a mere 2% of the world’s health-care workforce.
Health experts on the continent estimate that fewer than 50% of Africans have access to modern health facilities. And the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic last year exacerbated the situation for many countries, resulting in a situation where millions of people are in dire need of access to proper health care.
It’s against the backdrop of these frightening figures that more than 5 000 health-care professionals from across the globe and more than 200 international and regional companies will gather virtually, from October 25 to 29, to try to tackle the continent’s health crisis.
African nations, in April 2001, committed to allocating 15% of government budgets to health care, in what has become known as the Abuja Declaration. This was done to help address pressing health challenges of the day which include HIV/Aids, malaria and TB.
While several African governments have increased the proportion of total public expenditure allocated to health, overall health financing remains a major constraint to effective health service delivery. Furthermore, the slowdown in economic growth and high public indebtedness have restricted the fiscal space for the public financing of health care, with average debt-to-GDP ratio increasing by 15 percentage points from 2010 to 2017.
Total spending on health care in Africa has remained within a narrow band of 5 to 6% of GDP in 2000 to 2015, on average, though in per capita terms it has almost doubled. The World Bank’s 2018 estimates puts Sub-Saharan Africa’s current health expenditure as a percentage of GDP at 5 094.
Africa’s population is growing rapidly and, over the past 20 years, population figures on the continent increased by 2.5% annually and is expected to reach 2.4 billion by 2050.
As the population grows, there will be an increasing need for quality, accessible health-care services if the continent’s nations are to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by the year 2030, as set out in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.
Experts also point to the need for the urgent reform of health-care service delivery, to remove the levels of inequity and inefficiency.
Exhibition director Azzan Mohamed said the needs would be among the key themes at this year’s Africa Health Conference, as it creates a unique opportunity for healthcare experts and businesses from across the world to gather and discuss the medical and health-care developments of the continent.
“We have convened ‘in person’ versions of this event for the past nine years, but the pandemic and its associated limitations means we have had to pivot to a new format that reaches more people, said Mohamed.
“The flexibility of hosting an event on a virtual platform means that we will again be able to offer a rich series of exhibitions and discussions as we have done in previous years. They will also be able to do all of this at no cost to them, which we hope will remove any barrier to attendance of such an important medical event.”
The congress will cater to African and global health-care professionals and share strategies that are shaping the future of medicine, whilst also evaluating the latest disruptors driving the transformation of health care.
Each day of the event will also see selected country delegates being profiled or medical products being selected for demonstration.
“Though we have gone virtual, our mission still remains the same, that is to bring together the continent’s best on a sophisticated platform offering the widest range of relevant content for health-care workers across Africa,” said Cynthia Makarutse, the senior conference producer.
The five-day conference will involve a mix of online lectures and conference topic discussions, supported by virtual meeting rooms where medical device and product developers can interact with business and networking contacts.
“We believe in an ever-changing world of human health, forming deeper connections with the African Healthcare Community matters now more than ever,” said Makarutse.
“For this reason, we are redefining the art and science of making meaningful business connections by offering a carefully curated series of online events. This platform provides unique education and networking opportunities for health-care professionals who value innovation, learning, and business.
“Our virtual conference event will have lots to talk about and deliberate. Understandably the topic of the coronavirus pandemic will feature prominently on our agenda, but discussions will go much further than just ways of dealing with Covid-19.”
Organisers said that now more than ever, professionals need to come together to address African specific health-care issues.
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