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Dear AFREhealth Community,

AFREhealth extends heartfelt congratulations to Prof Elsie Kiguli-Malwadde (President of AFREhealth and Director of Health Workforce and Development at the African Centre for Social Health and Social Transformation, Uganda) and Prof Abebe Bekele Zerihun (Deputy Vice Chancellor at University of Global Health Equity in Kigali, Rwanda, and a member of the AFREhealth Governing Council), for their noteworthy achievement in receiving the 2024 CUGH Global Leadership Award. This award recognises outstanding individuals who are significantly impacting global health outcomes worldwide. We celebrate this meaningful accomplishment and success with great joy.

Dear AFREhealth Colleagues,

Join us to congratulate Prof. Oathokwa Nkomazana who will take up a new position as Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health in the Government of Botswana beginning 3rd October 2023. 

She was a member of our past Governing Council,  and was a founding member of AFREhealth (Former MEPI PI). 

She has been an Associate Professor of Public Health (2019), Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor- Academic Affairs (2018 - 2020), Dean Faculty of Medicine (June 2018 to date) at the University of Botswana.

We wish her the best as she takes on this new post.

AFREhealth with funding support from the National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center, USA has installed a 30kW ultra-modern solar system worth $58,690.00 at the School of Medicine and Dentistry, KNUST where its Secretariat is based. This is part of AFREhealth’s broader commitment to addressing climate change and support KNUSTs’ green energy agenda.

The solar system, which provides an alternative energy supply, will help stabilize power supply and enhance academic and operational activities of the School. The system was executed by the Starsight Energy Ghana Limited.

The project was commissioned on 29th August 2023 by Prof. Rita Akosua Dickson, Vice-Chancellor, KNUST, assisted by Prof Christian Agyare, Provost, College of Health Science, Prof Sam Newton, Dean, School of Public Health and Mrs Georgina Yeboah, Executive Director of AFREhealth.

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By 2003, highly active antiretroviral therapy (ART) had transformed AIDS from a fatal illness into a chronic, manageable condition in industrialized countries. But in sub-Saharan Africa, home to 70% of the global population of people living with HIV, fewer than 50,000 of the estimated 27 million people living with HIV had access to ART, which resulted in a staggering 10- to 20-year drop in life expectancy and millions of infants with HIV dying within 1 year after birth.¹

To address the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, U.S. President George W. Bush announced the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003. Congress swiftly authorized $15 billion as part of the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act.

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