With $13 per person we can solve most of the nation’s health problems, DR Congo minister says
The Democratic Republic of Congo is uniquely attracted to a number of health challenges. With more than fifty percent of Africa’s surface water, vast forests and a tropical climate, it makes headlines in the global news every few months during the outbreak of deadly disease.
But the country’s health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba, says the bulk of the country’s health problems are simpler issues that can be solved extraordinarily cheaply and without foreign aid.
“We still have diseases that we can treat with little means. It is infectious diseases that kill the most. It's the haemorrhages affecting mothers giving birth. We can treat it with a compress. Its diseases are caused by the lack of vaccines. So these are diseases that we can treat with little means,” he said in an interview at the Crans Montana Forum in Casablanca.
Kamba estimates that for as little as $13 per person or around $2 billion a year, he could solve 60% of his people’s health problems. That still represents a considerable chunk of the country’s $15 billion budget but Kamba believes it is achievable because of the potential to draw tax revenue from the vast swathes of the informal economy.
Kamba points to initiatives like free medical care during childbirth, an achievement of which the former pediatric doctor is clearly proud as it addresses the top cause of premature mortality in the country and an expanded vaccination programme. His goal is to increase life expectancy by two years annually, moving the DRC quickly clear of the top 20 worst-performing countries in the world.
Big Pharma look elsewhere
He stresses that he wants Congo to pay its own way, but at the same time is critical of a lack of engagement from big pharmaceutical companies which he says are missing the opportunity to find a place in a huge potential market.
“Big Pharma is very interested in new formulas, in new products that are still expensive. And that Africans in general and the Congo in particular can't buy yet. And so they don't make much effort on the older formulae, on the older medicines that are still effective in our country. Because in our countries, with infectious diseases, with the problems of women and newborns, we still need old medicines that still are very good for us. And Big Pharma is not very involved in this,” he told Global South World.
A bigger immediate challenge for Kinshasa’s health officials is the conflict in North and South Kivu which has displaced around 7 million people. As well as putting those individuals in peril through malnutrition and lack of sanitation, the destruction of health centres and attacks on medical staff pose an array of problems. Of particular concern from an international perspective is the inability of the authorities to monitor cases of mpox, as patients flee the fighting and take their illnesses into vulnerable communities.
Despite the war, Kemba genuinely seems to feel that his country has turned a corner in taking control of its destiny and putting its people first. He laments how, as a doctor for three decades he didn’t see a single public hospital built in his country. And had he worked twice as long, back to the first days of independence he still would not have.
That drought has been ended by President Félix Tshisekedi who has also backed Kamba in bringing in measures such as centralised purchases of medicines. But the health system remains fragile, especially following the withdrawal of US funding, and will depend on far-reaching economic reform to deliver the resources it needs to fulfil Kamba’s hopes.
