Health Sector Cooperation in Asia-Africa Growth Corridor

Sandhu, Harpreet

Asia and Africa being home to one-third of human population face the daunting challenge of meeting the demand for healthcare services, disease prevention and management. The burden of provision of healthcare services falls heavily and unequally for the countries in Asia and Africa. Population growth, faster mobility, urbanization and environmental changes like climate change and other factors increase the risk of faster global spread of infectious diseases. The role of international collaboration is critical for tackling the emerging challenges of various diseases. This chapter highlights the existing health sector cooperation schemes of India and Japan in Africa in the AAGC framework. The potential areas of cooperation are biomedical and health research such as advanced capacity in genomics, proteomics and modern biology, establishment of public and private clinical services, and so on. India’s strength in generic drugs, vaccine supply, open source drug discovery and development is vital for improving healthcare sector in African countries. Japan’s targeted intervention in disease prevention and mitigation would contribute significantly to the provision of healthcare services in Africa. Entrepreneurship platforms, incubators, product development partnerships, early stage development R&D and similar innovative health strategies would lift the burden of diseases in Asia and Africa.