Dear subscriber,
The vaccine access gap in Africa is really a logistics challenge. Global health partners seem to be working towards fixing it.
Treezer Michelle Atieno - Editor
The vaccine alliance Gavi is doubling down on developing microarray patches for Africa. This is a form of administering vaccines through a painless patch on the skin. Microarray patches do not require cold storage unlike traditional vaccines, a fact that solves vaccine cold chain challenges across the continent.
Motivated by the vaccine access inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic, global health partners recommend the patches for hard-to-reach rural areas with unreliable power supply.
One in four health facilities in Africa operate without electricity and while the use of solar energy in hospitals has picked up in the recent past, there are still millions of children missing out on routine immunisation because of broken cold chains.
Our take: Vaccine patches are a low-cost method to control future pandemics…Read more (2 min)
At least $27.6 million was raised in December by nine healthcare startups across the continent. The highest funding amount in this cycle, $23 million, went to Nawah Scientific for health research. CarePoint received the second highest amount of $3 million, followed by MPharma with $1 million, both to improve digital health services.
NuvoteQ and OneHealth raised $200,000 each. Welo Health and Medpharma got $100,000 each while both Quro Medical and Namola received undisclosed amounts.
The funding supports different digital health and research services across the continent, with four of the startups based in southern Africa, four in West Africa and one in North Africa.
Our take: The rise in disease burden as a result of climate change justifies more investment in health research, but the funding imbalance across the nine companies is worrying…Read more (2 min)
Today we review two healthcare policies in our quarterly tracker. The first is the Africa’s Health Security and Sovereignty Agenda 2026 by the Africa CDC. It aims to safeguard the continent against rising health threats from climate change and reduce dependency on external systems, manufacturing, procurement, supply chains and financing.
The second is Kenya’s first ever climate and health policy launched in October 2025 during the Pan-African Conference on Environment, Climate Change and Health in Nairobi.
The Kenya Climate Change and Health Strategy (2024-2029) provides a comprehensive plan to improve health outcomes and increase community resilience against climate change.
Our take: The countries’ commitment to carry out climate and health vulnerability and adaptation assessments at the COP26 is finally translating to policies…Read more (2 min)
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Source: WHO
Rwanda commences the building of a regional surveillance facility for zoonotic diseases
Events
🗓️ Attend the Regional Global Health Security Summit in Kenya (January 27)
🗓️ Participate in World Health Summit in Kenya (April 27)
🗓️ Register for the Africa Health Business in Kenya (April 21)
Jobs
🧑⚕️ Be a Project Assistant at Amref (Ethiopia)
🧑⚕️ Apply to be a Digital Health Manager at Living Goods (Kenya)
🧑⚕️ Join TB HIV Care as Community and Advocacy Officer (SA)
Various
💉 New study warns about the rising drug-resistant infections
💉 Kenya to integrate traditional healers into mainstream healthcare
💉 SORA raises $2.5 million for drone and AI solutions for malaria control
Seen on LinkedIn
Anjo Daniel, a Medical Doctor, says, “Early diagnostics, telehealth and local manufacturing can fundamentally change health outcomes across Africa while creating jobs, strengthening local economies and building long-term health sovereignty.”__________________