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Interview: Africa nations should invest more in health systems: WHO

Xinhua, May 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

African countries should invest more in strengthening their health systems to ensure that lives are not lost in times of outbreaks of epidemics and other infectious diseases, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said here on Friday.

WHO's Director for the Africa Region, Matshidiso Moet, said the 2015 Global Strategy for health of women, children and adolescents will go a long way in helping countries to mitigate all preventable deaths.

Matshidiso told Xinhua in an interview that the strategy has put the building of strong health systems at the center of delivering quality health for all by 2030.

"It emphasizes accountability, monitoring and equity in the distribution of health services and resources. It will help countries to advance towards the direction where the greatest progress needs to be made. For this to happen, countries will need to invest in internal health information systems in order to use their own data in solving their health challenges," said Matshidiso.

The draft strategy calls for more funding towards improving health care services for women, children and adolescents, which advocates for quality health programs targeting marginalized rural and peri-urban areas.

"Building strong health systems is key in solving health challenges faced by many African countries. If we put in place very strong health systems, there will not be a need for different infrastructure for every epidemic or communicable disease that arises," said she, adding an effective health system will help countries to deliver quality and efficient health services using limited resources.

She said a number of countries including Ghana and Rwanda were already taking steps to tackle inequality by introducing the National Health Insurance schemes, and praised South Africa for taking a clear and fruitful policy direction in matters of health.

South Africa has reduced maternal mortality rate from 61 per 1, 000 people in 1990 to 45 per 1,000 in 2014.

Robin Gorna, WHO Director for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, said the 2015 Global Strategy will become a useful guide, for many countries still struggling with maternal deaths due to a variety of issues.

About 6.3 million children under the age of five died in Africa in 2013 with pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria topping the list of the causes of the deaths.

"The future is bright if we can get the right global strategy. The goals of this global strategy are: survive, thrive and transform. What we want to see is an end to all preventable deaths by 2030," Gorna told Xinhua.

She said that in HIV/AIDS is a massive issue for African adolescents especially young woman and it is the major cause of death.

"We also need to help them address their other challenges like alcohol abuse, illicit drugs use, suicide and depression. We have the means and we know what to do so let us do it," she said. Endi