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Mukudzei Chingwere in GENEVA, Switzerland

Ministers of Health from the African continent have agreed to champion the reformation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a bid to coordinate and better respond to future pandemics as well as building resilient and efficient health systems.

The move by the African block comes on the back of the developing world, particularly Africa, having been left exposed and marginalised in the distribution of vaccines and other mitigatory paraphernalia in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The developing world’s malignment and segregation came on the back of previous warnings and lamentations that the world health structure and systems in their present form were skewed against smaller economies.

Alive to the prospect of Covid-19 recurring or the coming of new pandemics, the African block met on the sidelines of the 76th edition of the World Health Assembly (WHA) and took a stand to reform WHO so it can better save the world populace in its entirety without prejudice in the event of a global pandemic.

Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira is leading Zimbabwe’s participation at WHA76 in place of Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr Constantino Chiwenga.

Speaking to journalists after the African Ministers’ meeting, Professor Murwira said Africa realised that the world would have more pandemics in future and now was the time to deal and address with exclusionary policies and strategies.

He said the African Ministers of Health met with the objective of looking at future pandemics, reforming the WHO regulations and were now in the process of reviewing the regulations of WHO in the light of the possibility of future pandemics.

“So, learning from what happened during Covid-19 where there was maldistribution of vaccines, of PPES (Personal Protective Equipment) its now important that we review our future based on our experience that we have had,” said Prof Murwira.

“So, the African Ministers met under the leadership of Kenya to really look at what is it in for Africa when it comes to future pandemics. Key issues such as lifting of intellectual property, how will we deal with that in the future, issues of vaccines, issues of distribution and collective reactions.

“We believe it was a very important meeting to just have a common understanding of what is facing us and how we construct a future of the WHO with new regulations.”

The recommendations from the African block were to the effect that the continent had to react to future pandemics in a way that was better than the way it reacted to Covid-19 which was very fragmented.

“Countries started closing their borders, cooperation was limited, however, it opened up with the leadership of the WHO, but it happened later,” he said. “Going forward, we actually expect to have rules at the beginning.”

The call to reform WHO comes at a time when Africa and other parts of the developing world have been calling for several international bodies, including the United Nations itself, to be reformed so that they can be inclusive and save all member states rather than being skewed in favour of the so-called super powers.