Africa has achieved significant progress in various health targets despite sharp cuts in global funding, according to the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tewodros Adhanom.
In a video message shared on Tuesday at the 76th Session of WHO Regional Committee for Africa, in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, Adhanom said that Africa achieved many health milestones with Algeria, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Guinea, Kenya, Mauritius and Senegal reached major disease eliminations.
He said that despite a funding freeze, over 28 million doses of medicines for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) were delivered in many African countries, including in DR. Congo, which carries the world’s largest burden of sleeping sickness.
According to the Director-General, an estimated 21.7 million people living with HIV in Africa were kept on uninterrupted treatment with Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe already reaching the 95-95-95 targets.
He said that TB treatment coverage in Africa recovered to 74 per cent up from 52 per cent in 2020, with Uganda now treating more than 90 per cent of estimated cases.
Adhanom recalled that 18 million children in the continent got malaria vaccines across 25 countries, while in Burkina Faso cases have already fallen by nearly a third.
He claimed six new countries introduced vaccination against Human PapillomaVirus (HPV) while Cabo Verde, Mauritius and Seychelles became the first sub-Saharan countries to achieve verified measles and rubella elimination.
The Director-General said that 4 million more people in Ghana and Zimbabwe gained access to mental services and outbreaks are being detected and contained faster.
He, however, warned that the region continues to face multiple challenges with families still pay a third of their income out of their pockets; cholera reached a regional record of more than 245,000 cases while 44 out of 47 countries cannot reliably record why their people die; and about 70 per cent of maternal deaths and almost half of under-5 deaths globally are in Africa.
MG/gik/APA