Not for the first time, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has blasted heads of state who fly to other countries when they need medical help, telling the G20 ministerial dialogue in Johannesburg on Monday that African leaders continue to prefer dying in foreign lands because they don’t trust healthcare systems on the continent.
How could the world take Africa seriously if its heads of state did not trust their own healthcare systems, he said.
"I raised this issue in 2014 at the World Health Organisation (WHO) meeting. I raised it again in Zimbabwe. Why are we the only continent in the world where when the head of state is sick, they’ve got to go to another country for treatment?”
The last time Motsoaledi raised the issue was during Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s illness in 2019. Before his death, Mugabe spent nearly six months in Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore at Zimbabwean taxpayers’ expense.
The Minister said that when he had proposed to his African counterparts that heads of state seek treatment at home, he was not supported.
“It is still happening,” he said. “If we are to be taken seriously, let’s also be treated locally to show the world we have confidence in our own systems.”
Malaria
Motsoaledi said he was making similar demands in the fight against malaria in Africa, particularly as at least 94% of all malaria deaths were on this continent.
On why discussions around manufacturing vaccines had died down after the Covid-19 pandemic, Motsoaledi lamented the fact that this had been a missed opportunity.
“Covid-19 was a crisis that opened our minds…we were given the opportunity to manufacture. But …the opportunity has collapsed because there was nobody who was prepared … because everybody wanted to do things the way they did in the past.”
Medical experts were now cautious of being caught off-guard by the next pandemic, he added.
“So it was a crisis we don’t want to waste… for the next pandemic. We don’t want to be caught off-guard like last time, because nobody prepared for it, but we must prepare for the next one.”
Motsoaledi referred to the WHO’s pathogen priority list – and an unknown pathogen with the potential to trigger a severe global epidemic, referred to as “Pathogen X”.
“We are waiting for it… we don’t know its name yet, but we know it’s there. We know it’s coming.”
He criticised dependency on overseas production and said African nations suffer disproportionately.
“In Africa, we don’t even manufacture products to combat malaria, where most of the cases are. They all come from India,” he said.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Motsoaledi slams ‘health tourism’ by African leaders
African leaders seeking medical help abroad is 'on the rise'
Most of Africa’s leaders seek their medical treatment abroad