Health at its best is wealth and not scraps of gold or silver

The World’s Second Largest and Populous Continent is- Africa. This continent makes up about 15% of the world’s human population and is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea towards the north, along with Suez Canal and Red sea to the north east, while the Indian Ocean to the southeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The African Continent also includes the Madagascar and various archipelagos, and contains 54 sovereign states, 9 territories and 2 de facto independent states that have no recognition. Africa as a continent has the youngest population with over 50% of Africans are 19 and below years of age. It also is the fastest growing economies, and ranks the first in terms of its malnutrition rate and lack of education provided to the children in the continent.

Africa is rich in its natural resources, yet is one of the poorest continents in the world. In the various parts of Africa, people often suffer from a range of sicknesses and diseases that substantiates their living standards and deprives them from further development or progress of health issues in the continent. Most of the deaths occur in the Sub-Saharan African region, throughout the year there are thousands of women and newborns who die due to severe illness. It is either due to premature birth, infection, asphyxia act as killers for newborns, with malnutrition in mothers is the underlying issue in most cases. There are many reasons for these deaths that have become common in Africa, such as poverty, shortage in supply of medicines, distance of a nearest health centre, shortage and lack of skilled health care workers are a few causes out of the many that lead to sabotaging lives of infants or their mothers.

There is only one superior country that has frequently lent a hand of help towards Africa’s healthcare sector is which is The United States of America. Africa as a continent is unable to meet the current demands and needs for its people, because there is a wide gap in the health care quality that is received by people living in cities and those that live in rural areas. To achieve any significant improvement in the healthcare sector in Africa, stringent laws and policies must be developed to tighten or strengthen the health systems across the continent that will indirectly be a help to the poor and the rich people in the community. Many countries in the African continent are too far in achieving those Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – not because these goals are unattainable but because of the countries health systems that are too weak to enrich and achieve their reduction in disease targets of these MDGs. In 2006, the G8 Summit at St. Petersburg, The Prime Minister of Russia- Harper, had committed Canada to provide help in strengthening the health systems by contributing $450 million in a decade. The Africa Health Systems Initiative (AHSI) aims to improve outcomes in health and make a significant improvement towards the health-related MDGs in particular child mortality and maternal health. The African Health System Initiative (AHSI) has already initiated in eight countries such as, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, Sudan, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria & three other regions- Pan-Africa, West and Central Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa.

Way to go Africa!!