{"id":37486,"date":"2026-06-19T08:34:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T06:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=37486"},"modified":"2026-06-19T08:34:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T06:34:55","slug":"sadc-who-move-to-boost-local-medicine-manufacturing-regional-disease-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sadc-who-move-to-boost-local-medicine-manufacturing-regional-disease-surveillance\/","title":{"rendered":"SADC, WHO move to boost local medicine manufacturing, regional disease surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Southern African Development Community (SADC) Executive Secretary Elias Magosi and World Health Organisation (WHO) Representative Dr Fabian Ndenzako have met to reinforce their regional partnership, placing a heavy focus on ramping up local medicine manufacturing and strengthening disease response networks.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The high-level meeting in Botswana evaluated lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, with Magosi pointing out the urgent need to map and secure the entire health product manufacturing value chain across Southern Africa. Both leaders agreed that boosting local production and utilising pooled procurement strategies are vital steps towards achieving regional health sovereignty.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To tighten technical co-ordination, Ndenzako introduced Dr Miriam Nanyunja as WHO&#8217;s newly appointed Senior Health Adviser to SADC. Nanyunja will act as a strategic bridge between the two bodies, specifically overseeing early warning systems, rapid response protocols, and disease outbreak preparedness.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The discussions also finalised the operational details for the Resilient Health Systems for Emergency Preparedness Project. Backed by the African Development Bank, the project split-allocates $4.3 million to the SADC Secretariat and $5 million to WHO to jointly build emergency public health buffers.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, both parties are currently updating their 2002 Memorandum of Understanding to better reflect modern African health challenges and streamline technical support to member states.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica\/SADC&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":35422,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-37486","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"SADC and WHO have met to reinforce their regional partnership","published_date":"2026-06-19 07:42:47","news_description":"SADC and WHO have met to reinforce their regional partnership","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37487,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37486\/revisions\/37487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}