…says heavy leliance on foreign countries increasing continent’s vulnerability

African countries are predicted to face excruciating health crisis in years to come, due to disruption of supply chains for essential medical materials, rising cost of medical materials and war time taxes.

This alarm was raised on Thursday at the during the weekly high-level regional press briefing of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

According to the centre, at the centre of the looming crisis sit majorly, rising input and transport costs linked to the ongoing Middle East crisis.

Speaking during the virtual briefing, director-general of Africa CDC, Dr Jean Kaseya said the cost of key materials, such as polyester used in mosquito nets, had led to surge in cost of medical products by up to 40 percent.

He said shipping expenses had spiked due to new war taxes and fuel surcharges reaching $4,000 per container.

According to the Africa CDC boss, delays in freight and disruptions in supply chains stand at major threat to timely delivery of medicines, vaccines, and other health products.

Kaseya alsp noted that Africa’s heavy reliance on imports from from countries, especially China and India, had increased the continent’s vulnerability.

“Vulnerability ranges from rising costs to lives at stake, price hikes and shortages risk evolving into a public health crisis,” he said.

He also emphasised Africa CDC’s Africa Health Security and Sovereignty (AHSS) Agenda.

The AHSS agenda promotes stronger leadership, coordinated pandemic preparedness, sustainable domestic health financing, digital transformation of health systems, and local manufacturing of health products.

Kaseya pointed to the Democratic Republic of Congo as a model, showing how political commitment and innovative financing, such as import levies and mandatory insurance, can reduce donor dependence and expand domestic health coverage.

“Health financing alone is only half the battle; stewardship, efficiency, and integrated systems are equally critical,” he stressed.

He urged African nations to scale and sustain reforms that strengthen domestic ownership of health priorities, improve efficiency, and reduce fragmentation, ensuring that Africa can safeguard its health security despite global supply shocks.

The Africa CDC DG pointed that that achieving health sovereignty would require a combination of political will, innovative financing, and structural reforms to make Africa’s health systems resilient in the face of global crises.

Recall that Africa CDC had also recently lamented rising global economic pressures, including higher oil prices, which it said were pushing countries to rethink how they finance healthcare and secure essential medical countermeasures.

The Deputy Incident Manager for Mpox at Africa CDC Incident Management Support Team (IMST), Prof. Yap Boum II, gave the disclosure during the weekly high-level regional press briefing.

Highlighting the challenges posed by international crisis, Boum noted that the centre’s operations and partner deployments in several countries were being affected by global economic pressures.

“We are still in the process of assessing how our operations and those of our partners are being impacted, but these pressures are driving local manufacturing agendas.

“Countries are realising the need to stockpile essential medical countermeasures to reduce vulnerability to global supply shocks,” Boum said.

According to him, a key strategy being implemented is building domestic expertise in health financing to help countries in the region manage resources more sustainably.

“Twenty financial experts are being deployed in high-priority countries to support Ministries of Health in designing sustainable strategies.

“In one country, the Ministry recently approved the profile of an expert who will advise on national health financing,” he added.

While regional powers devise means of cushioning the economic effects of the Middle East crisis occasioned by the war between the United States, Israel and Iran, on the populace, health experts continue to bemoan surging health emergencies in local communities.

The US and Israel on February 28, 2026, commenced coordinated, large-scale airstrikes on Iran, after days of warning on government of the Islamic republic to end alleged mass killing of anti-regim protesters, and as well halt production of nuclear weapons.

While the US-Israel strikes targeted Iranian military infrastructure and leadership,, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) retaliated with missile attacks on US and Israeli interests across the Middle East, in what global observers fear could lead to further escalation of the conflic across the region.

A major aspect of the burgeoning crisis is the shrinking of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for oil tanks and other supplies to the international market.