Africa CDC has launched a transformative vision for the continent’s health future, emphasizing sovereignty, stronger systems, and African-led action. According to Professor Yap Boum, Head of the Incident Management Team at Africa CDC, the institution has entered a new strategic era, moving from defining the New Public Health Order to operationalizing a continental agenda focused on health security and self-reliance.
Launched last Monday and featured in The Lancet, the Africa Health Security and Sovereignty Agenda asserts that universal health coverage, pandemic preparedness, and sustainable development are unattainable without African nations’ capacity to finance, produce, and govern their own health systems and countermeasures. The agenda rests on five pillars: inclusive health architecture, strengthened prevention and preparedness, rapid response mechanisms, digital transformation, and innovative domestic health financing.
Professor Boum highlighted ongoing efforts in local vaccine manufacturing a critical priority given Africa’s high antimicrobial resistance (AMR) mortality, estimated at over 27 deaths per 100,000 people, with actual figures likely higher. This week’s AMR Awareness Week underscores what he calls a “silent pandemic” that claims more lives in Africa than HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. Weak surveillance systems exacerbate the problem: only 1.3% of laboratories have bacteriology capacity, leaving 99% of antibiotic use guided by guesswork rather than diagnostics.
To address these challenges, Africa CDC has supported national AMR action plans, strengthened surveillance across humans, animals, and plants via the One Health approach, digitalized over 800,000 AMR records, and established minimum standards for infection prevention and control (IPC). Regional training programs and legal frameworks now guide IPC implementation, while political leadership increasingly aligns with Africa CDC’s calls for domestic investment, stronger preparedness, and sustainable health financing.
The agenda has gained global attention. At Chatham House in London, Director-General Dr. Jean Kaseya emphasized that Africa’s health security must rely on strong systems, dependable financing, and African leadership not external dependency. Similarly, at the 18th Governing Board Meeting of the Pandemic Fund in Kigali, Rwanda, Africa CDC reported that nearly half of the fund’s latest investments focus on African pandemic preparedness. Africa secured USD 234 million in the third call for proposals, representing 47% of all approved funding an achievement credited to stronger national leadership and the Africa CDC-WHO joint mechanism that improved proposal quality and donor confidence.
“Africa CDC remains committed to transforming these resources into real protections for African communities,” Professor Boum said. “This is how we strengthen Africa’s health security and sovereignty not through speeches, but through systems that serve our people.”
