Utano Podcast | Let's Talk about Health in Africa

04 February 2022 | South Africa has been offered a lot of vaccines, that it has turned down which has made donors very unhappy.  "I don't think donors always understand that the logistics of each vaccine is different. Countries need time to gear up, so you can't have a shelf life of a month or two months to distribute a vaccine and get the cold chain properly in place, to be able to be responsible about the way you procure needles and syringes and to vaccinate people. It's not something you organise over a weekend." Dr Nicholas Crisp the Deputy Director General of National Health Insurance and the National Coordinator for Cvid-19 vaccination in South Africa explaining whether African countries should accept vaccines that are close to expiry which in turn generates negative press about their failure to utilise vaccines. 

28 January 2022 | What should African countries and the African Medicines Agency be doing to change a harmful dynamic driven largely by perceptions of the risks by sponsors and African people? African people think they are unethically targeted for clinical trials whilst sponsors of clinical trials fear that the risks of doing trials in African countries are much too high. If you consider that the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (#MHRA) and the European Medicines Agency (#EMA) are both actively trying to increase their attractiveness and the number of clinical trials done within their borders then Africa certainly needs to do more to improve it's #clinicalresearch environment.  #Pharmaceutical industry leaders have been lamenting the lack of #diversity in clinical trials and the need to address it. So how do you sort out the challenges, both real and perceived, in order to increase buy-in as well as diversity and inclusion in clinical trials and in #globalhealth?   Listen to this in-depth conversation with the Executive Director of the European and Development Countries Clinical Trials Partnership which is investing millions to strengthen the ability of the African clinical research environment to truly serve the needs of the African patient.  #health #africa #clinicaltrials #clinicaltrialdiversity #AfricanMedicinesAgency #EDCTP #AVAREF

21 January 2022 | According to Dr Mwinzi Pauline, the technical officer for #ntds at World Health Organization Africa office, countries in #africa lost significant gains made in #schistosomiasis control due to the #Covid19 pandemic. We can prevent further erosion of these gains by stepping up investment in tackling #schistosomiasis and other #ntds . Some of the actions needed include collecting more accurate data, deepening engagement with communities and stepping up disease control and elimination efforts that are data driven and more targeted. Eliminating diseases of poverty is the best way to break the vicious cycle of poverty for communities around the world. It would enable children not to miss out on education and adults to work and earn a living.

30 December 2021 | Imagine a disease that affects 60 million people, with only 3 treatments, one of which kills 5% of the patients, and administration can only be done in hospital. Dr Philippe Neau and his colleagues in Sanofi, NGOs, WHO and governments are working to change the paradigm of treating sleeping sickness to improve the available treatments by bringing oral medicines that  can be easily taken at community health facilities, with shorter courses without requirement for a lumbar puncture that can only be done in a hospital setting.   Products with a better safety and efficacy profiles will also enable the prophalactic treatment and treatment of suspected cases which will help to eliminate the remaining reservoirs of the tsetse fly parasite that causes sleeping sickness. Sanofi product development has been working with communities to conduct clinical trials team with support from local regulators and the European Medicines Agency to register the product in a collaborative registration process. Togo and Ivory coast have been declared free of sleeping sickness and Uganda and DRC have already registered the new improved treatment.

21 Dec 2021 | Prof. Agnes Binagwaho is one of the best public health leaders coming out of Africa. She speaks from the experience of being one of the key architects of Rwandans healthcare system, which is one of the most equitable health systems globally. In this podcast, she shares many valuable insights that many public health leaders not just in Africa will do well to emulate. Prof. Binagwaho shares with us her reflections on whether healthcare for all is attainable, what must happen in order for it to be attained and the most critical elements to achieving it. For example, the right to information and the right to participation and how it provides ownership and empowers communities. According to Prof. Binagwaho, the right to information is as important as the right to participation. If you don't get people to participate, they do not own their health properly and if you don't inform them, they do not own it. So according to Prof. Binagwaho, educating people about their health is one of the most important roles of a leader. Tune in to watch this podcast, there is so much you can learn from this veteran of global public health, teaching the next generation of public healthcare leaders.

 13 December 2021 | Africa has many existing biotech companies and CapeBio Technologies is one of them. The CEO of Capebio, Daniel Nima talks about how the biotech is harnessing unique ingredients, (enzymes) from the plants that have adapted to the harsh environment in South Africa´s Cape region to make diagnostics for detecting diseases, viruses and other infections. The plants in this region are unique and do not grow anywhere else in the world. This biotech is building a global business on the back of mother nature to fill a gap in diagnostics in African countries and empower scientists on the African continent and across the globe.

16 Nov 2021  | Lenias Hwenda | Let's Talk about Health in Africa | Titans of Industry  | Oramed´s oral insulin and oral Covid vaccine are powerful innovations that could transform access dynamics in Africa  | Nadav Kidron, President & CEO Oramed Pharmaceuticals

Oramed was recently given approval from SAHPRA to initiate a phase 1 clinical trials for insulin. This vaccine is oral and does not require injection which simplifies logistics, it does not need to be given by a health professional and it does not require additional medical consumables like needs and syringes, all of which reduces its cost significantly. The President and CEO of Oramed pharmaceuticals, Nadav Kidron spoke to Lenias Hwenda about what this vaccines could mean on the African continent and his ambitions for the African continent.

09 Nov 2021 |  Africa´s largest pharmaceutical multinational corporation, Aspen, is a trailblazing company that has shown that you can occupy global leadership position out of Africa. In a fireside conversation with Lenias Hwenda, Stavros Nicolaou, a Senior Executive at Aspen Pharmacare lamented that the his observation that countries on the African continent have a problem with pharmaceutical manufacturing implementation. Africa does not have many companies that have achieved Aspen Pharmacare´s success because far too many African pharmaceutical companies have been mothballed over the years primarily due to the procurement dynamics that excludes African manufacturers from local and international markets. African governments need to designate locally produced pharmaceuticals in order to solve their growing pharmaceutical trade deficit.

9 September 2021 | After international mechanisms failed to meet the need of Africans in the Covid-19 pandemic, would Africa invest so much energy in multilateral mechanism or rather focus more on regional coperation? Dr John Nkengasong the Director of the Africa CDC answers this question.

24 May 2021 | Lenias Hwenda: Let's Talk about Health in Africa - African people should be benefiting from the wealth and natural resources of their countries.

Lenias Hwenda in conversation with Honourable Minister Jay Naidoo, a former Minister for Reconstruction and Development, and the Minister of Post, Telecommunications and Broadcasting in the government of President Nelson Mandela. Many African countries have vast national wealth in the form of natural resources that belong to their citizens. Yet, African citizens have not benefited from the exploitation of these natural resources and Africa's claim to fame remains its singular unparalleled poverty which exists alongside vast national wealth that drives the global economy. Hon. Jay Naidoo argues that is is possible for the wealth of African countries to be used for the well-being of Africans, that the status quo is not working for Africans and needs to be urgently changed because we are running out of time - the future is now, not tomorrow.