by Charles Wetherill
Leaders and health officials from around Africa are calling for action against the flood of counterfeit and substandard medicines which daily exhaust the confidence of patients and give advantages to diseases that need no advantage as they take lives. Africa faces the steepest health care challenges of any region in the world. Medicines that cannot be trusted compound those challenges beyond measure. Continue reading
Ugandan smallholders have supplied $53 million worth of food to the United Nations World Food Program as part of its new Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative which is designed to give poor farmers in developing countries the opportunity to move beyond subsistence agriculture into commercial production. (Photo by Penny Ferguson/WFP)
WFP bought maize worth $34 million and beans worth $10 million from Uganda, as well as $9 million worth of maize meal and enriched blends for children. It also paid $14 million to local truckers to transport the foodstuffs to their destination warehouses. The food is intended for use in Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Continue reading
In this issue: successful PEPFAR partnerships, strengthening Tanzania’s health sector, a new initiative in Uganda, the final push against guinea worm, and more. Continue reading
Search engine company Google announced in October that it awarded grants of more than $14 million to support researchers in Africa and Southeast Asia who are working to prevent the next pandemic. The initiative, known as Predict and Prevent, will be part of a global effort to identify hot spots where diseases may emerge, detect new pathogens circulating in animal and human populations, and respond to outbreaks before they become global crises. Continue reading
Africa moved one step closer to full economic integration in October when representatives from three regional trade blocs, including six Heads of State, agreed at a summit hosted by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala, to form a new cross-regional free trade bloc and customs union. The new bloc, to be comprised of the 26 member nations of the Common Market of Southern and Eastern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), will create the largest free trade area on the African continent with a market of over 527 million people and a combined GDP of $624 billion.
President Yoweri Museveni of the Republic of Uganda concluded an official state visit to the United States during which he advanced Africa and, specifically, Uganda’s interests in a myriad of ways. During meetings with President Bush, Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice, United States Trade Representative Susan Schwab, Acting Administrator of USAID Henrietta Holsom Fore, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus, Museveni urged US leaders to protect and expand the African Growth and African Opportunity Act (AGOA), President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). He further urged US leaders to consider launching a US-Africa Summit to build on the partnership with Africa, while according African leaders with an opportunity to officially provide Washington with input on global issues, such as climate change, trade, and terrorism. Continue reading
President Museveni of the Republic of Uganda was lauded at a breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel for his achievement in fighting HIV/AIDS by an audience of over 130 representatives of the African Diplomatic Corps, health care industry, NGO’s and global media as well as senior U.S. and Ugandan officials. The breakfast, entitled “The Way Forward on HIV/AIDS and Health Care in Africa: Partnerships and a New Paradigm,” was held at 8:30 am and co-hosted by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) and a coalition of NGOs including the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, Africare, Church World Service, Constituency for Africa as well as The Whitaker Group. In a speech that highlighted success stories from Uganda’s fight against HIV/AIDS, the President emphasized the importance of public-private partnerships between industry, NGOs and government to advance research and innovation around the globe and to improve access to medicine and treatment across Africa. The discussion followed yesterday’s meeting between the President and U.S. President George W. Bush, during which the two leaders discussed efforts to combat HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Continue reading
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