Africa largely behind, Dikoloti tells WHO
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Tuesday August 30, 2022 06:56
Speaking at a WHO regional committee gathering in Lome, Togo last week Friday, the minister said this impedes the ability to end the pandemic and achieve the common objective of global health. “Botswana has made significant progress in regards to the COVID-19 vaccine coverage and currently we have reached 70% COVID-19 vaccinations.
We appreciate WHO and Africa CDC's collaboration to launch the COVID-19 network of genome sequencing laboratories and to rapidly expand genetic surveillance capacities across the continent. This is key to ensure that we are able to monitor variants of concern and manage outbreaks rapidly,” Dikoloti said.
He added Botswana continues to make progress in building local genomic sequencing capacity, which has enabled them to identify the variants of concern including Omicron. Dikoloti said they fully support the initiatives and the secretariat’s support to build local and regional pharmaceutical production for vaccines, which will assure ‘‘our supply of essential commodities and medical supplies to manage not only COVID-19 but also other diseases of public health importance’’. With regards to the Transformation Agenda, the minister said they have noted with appreciation the progress achieved and key successful outcomes.
He said the secretariat’s transformation work focused on strengthening WHO country offices to better respond to country priorities, consolidating and expanding the leadership programme, and gender parity, including initiatives to train the WHO country staff management on leadership to drive the 13th General Programme of Work. In addition, he said they realised the impact at the country level that this transformation agenda has created. “We note the key initiatives launched including building regional capacity to prepare and respond effectively to public health threats through the Flagship initiative, Promoting Resilience of Systems for Emergencies, Transforming Africa’s Surveillance Systems, and Strengthening and Using Response Groups for Emergencies,” he added. Still at the WHO conference, Dikoloti said the new 2022 WHO report has revealed that healthy life expectancy in the African region has increased by an average of 10 years per person since 2019, from 46 to 56 years, which reflects the improvements across many critical health indicators.
He said progress is still needed to reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The minister added this requires increased and sustainable investment towards strengthening health systems, enabling communities to lead healthy lives, and addressing the environmental, social and economic determinants of health as the drivers of health outcomes for the human, animal, and plant species on the planet.