Nairobi, Feb 3 (IANS): Connecting a critical mass of health facilities in Africa with reliable power should be prioritised to enhance response to the continent's growing disease burden, a forum in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, heard Monday.
Senior policymakers, experts, investors, campaigners, and innovators are attending the Energizing Healthcare 2025 summit that runs from Monday to Tuesday, which is expected to chart a new pathway for enhancing the resilience and competence of Africa's healthcare systems through electrification.
The two-day summit has been organised by Kenya's Ministries of Health and Energy in conjunction with international partners including Sustainable Energy for All, an international green lobby, and the Health and Energy Platform of Action that is hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Stephen Nzioka, the Director of Renewable Energy in Kenya's Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, said that electrifying health facilities in remote outposts will be key to easing Africa's high disease burden that has worsened poverty and inequality.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 25,000 healthcare facilities operate without electricity while an additional 70,000 have unreliable power connections, according to Nzioka.
"These profound gaps impact healthcare delivery, hindering access to diagnostics, life-saving treatment and medical services," Nzioka said, emphasising the nexus between energy access, climate resilience and better health outcomes in the continent.
Nzioka stressed that connecting off-grid health facilities in Africa with renewable energy will be key to sustaining routine immunization, motivating healthcare workers and enhancing the delivery of essential commodities such as diagnostics and medicine. He disclosed that in Kenya, 26 per cent of health facilities lack electricity connection while only 15 percent have a consistently reliable power supply, undermining the realization of the universal health coverage agenda.
Salvatore Vinci, the technical lead of Healthcare Facilities Electrification at WHO, emphasised that investments in reliable, clean and stable power supply will be pivotal to the delivery of quality but affordable healthcare services in Africa, Xinhua news agency reported.
Vinci acknowledged the continent's abundant clean energy sources like solar and wind that could be harnessed to connect off-grid health facilities that are grappling with an influx of patients suffering from infectious diseases.
"We need to leverage decentralized solar systems that are reliable, climate resilient and cost-effective," Vinci said, calling for action on policy, funding and capacity bottlenecks that have hindered the uptake of clean energy in Africa's health sector.