Korede Abdullah in Lagos
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has urged African leaders to take immediate action to address the continent’s deepening health crisis.
“Africa is facing an unprecedented convergence of crises that threaten to undo decades of progress in health security,” the CDC warned in a statement on Friday.
The agency highlighted the surge in health emergencies, from 153 outbreaks in 2022-2023 to 242 in 2024, which raises the risk of another pandemic emerging from the continent.
According to the statement, “A shifting global landscape has seen many wealthy nations turning inward, reducing development assistance to prioritse domestic needs, including the announced 90-day pause in U.S. foreign aid. The repercussions are dire.”
The Africa CDC emphasized that the situation is dire, with financial constraints threatening to reverse health gains and push morbidity and mortality rates back to early 2000s levels.
The agency projected that without urgent intervention, two to four million additional deaths per year from preventable and treatable diseases could occur. This would not only have a devastating human toll but also result in massive economic losses, costing Africa billions annually and pushing an estimated 39 million more people into poverty.
The CDC noted that while Africa is working to protect its people, peace remains the missing ingredient. The agency cited the example of Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where insecurity and mass displacement have fuelled the mutation of the Mpox virus, generating the deadly Clade 1b variant.
The CDC emphasized that this is not just an African crisis, but a global crisis in the making, requiring immediate attention and action from African leaders and the international community.
