Mozambique’s National Health Institute (INS) called on African countries Monday to significantly increase investment in science, innovation, and health technologies in order to reduce the continent’s external dependence on the production of diagnostic tests, medicines, and other health solutions.
The appeal was made by INS Director-General Eduardo Samo Gudo during the fifth symposium marking the 30th anniversary of the Manhiça Health Research Centre in Maputo, according to the Mozambique Information Agency (AIM).
Samo Gudo argued that the African continent cannot continue to rely on the Global North, Western countries, and other developed nations to create the tests and medicines needed to address its health challenges.
“The continent cannot keep waiting for the Global North, Western countries, and other wealthy nations to develop the tests and medicines,” he said.
The INS chief urged African countries to begin finding solutions through science and to build their own capacity to confront the continent’s current and future health challenges.
“We must invest today in science, innovation, and technological development in health, or we will perpetuate a dependence on the West and continue waiting for them to develop solutions before we can have access,” he declared.
Samo Gudo pointed to successive Ebola epidemics on the continent as evidence that Africa consistently responds too slowly to emerging diseases.
“We had the Ebola epidemic in 2014, then another in 2018, and now we have a new one. We are always behind,” he said.
For the INS director-general, responding to new health challenges requires advance investment that will enable the continent to develop its own appropriate products and solutions.
“To move forward and generate the products that allow us to respond adequately to new challenges, particularly in the case of emerging diseases, we need to make investments in advance,” he said.
Samo Gudo added that such investment must also encompass the health industry and clinical research, which he described as fundamental to the development of new products on the continent.
He said strengthening Africa’s research capacity would enable the continent to anticipate and respond more effectively to health challenges as they arise.
“Our leaderships, in multilateral organisations and institutions, must prioritise increased investment in health. The continent must invest in its own future,” he concluded.
Source: Diário Económico
Original article: https://www.diarioeconomico.co.mz/2026/07/20/desenvolvimento-2/ins-desafia-paises-africanos-a-reforcarem-investimento-na-saude/
