S3E6: Building a Healthier Africa

How can Africans receive greater access to quality healthcare? That's the problem we'll attempt to explain in this episode, and it's a wicked problem.

In this episode, we go deep into the healthcare value chain from diagnostics to labs to clinics and pharmacies, to better understand how it all works and how those we speak to in this episode are working to get improved care to Africans across the continent.

[04:49] - Today, there is a greater trend towards reactive, not proactive medicine, due to high out-of-pocket spend for medical care, as 54gene's Dr. Jumi Popoola explains.

[07:01] - The high degree of out-of-pocket spending coupled with low incomes ultimately creates the problem of low accessibility to high-quality healthcare, about which we speak to Ilara Health's Emilian Popa.

[11:05] - Medical care starts with diagnostics. How do we get cheaper and more accessible diagnostics to the last mile? And why are diagnostics so important in the first place?

[16:39] - Also, how do we get more payers into the healthcare ecosystem to pay for diagnostics?

[21:39] - Fragmentation of pharmacies and healthcare facilities at the last mile is also a problem. We hear from Suleman Sule with Field Intelligence.

[25:46] - We speak to Zipline's Israel Bimpe. When it comes to high-value essential medicines, perhaps on-demand delivery is required to increase availability and reduce waste.

[32:47] - 54gene's ultimate mission is to ensure the treatments being used on the continent are the right treatments and, through their biobank, to participate in the research process to develop new drugs and treatments for Africa and beyond.

[36:45] - A retrospective conversation between The Flip's Justin Norman and Sayo Folawiyo.

This season is sponsored by MFS Africa.

All this season, we're exploring value chains. And in the payments value chain, no fintech has a wider reach on the continent than MFS Africa. Through their network of over 180 partners - MNOs, banks, NGOs, fintechs, and global enterprises - MFS Africa's API hub makes connects over 320 million mobile wallets across 30+ countries in Africa.