“This particular commemoration will highlight the ongoing burden of malaria in the region and reinforce the significance of sustained cooperation, prevention, surveillance and coordinated interventions towards malaria elimination,” said Foster Mohale, Health Department spokesperson.
Health ministers from across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have begun a five-day meeting at the Durban International Convention Centre to coordinate responses to regional health challenges, infectious disease threats, and declining development assistance.
📍Today | South Africa will host the Joint Meeting of SADC Ministers of Health and Ministers Responsible for HIV/AIDS in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, from 9 to 13 November 2026. The meeting will bring together regional leaders to strengthen cooperation, advance health security and… pic.twitter.com/r6elhQRp33
South Africa is hosting the high-level regional gathering in Durban as it holds the chairship of the SADC. The joint meeting brings together ministers of health and ministers responsible for HIV and AIDS from the bloc’s 16 member states to turn regional commitments into practical measures.
Discussions focus heavily on regional health security, emergency preparedness, and climate change. Officials are also addressing the anticipated 2026–27 El Niño phenomenon, which threatens to intensify food insecurity, malnutrition, and climate-sensitive diseases across Southern Africa.
Southern African Development Community countries are looking at ways to strengthen local medicine production and reduce their dependence on pharmaceutical imports, as part of a broader programme addressing disease outbreaks, emergency readiness and pressures on healthcare services.
Delegates at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre are advancing plans to establish the SADC Pharmaceutical Pooled Procurement Services to use collective purchasing power and improve supply security for essential medicines.
Government is hosting the Joint Meeting of SADC Ministers of Health and Ministers Responsible for HIV/AIDS in Durban from 9 to 13 November 2026. Under South Africa's SADC Chairship, the meeting will strengthen regional cooperation and support practical action to protect… pic.twitter.com/4AEv8UoNA9
“The SADC Pooled Procurement Mechanism, which is about aggregating volumes for medication, about us making sure we get benefits of scale through price comparisons, and making sure that we can get supply that is available, because I think we all learned very hard lessons from Covid when we were put at the end of the queue when global supply chains shut down,” said Dr Thembisile Xulu, National Department of Health Director-General.
According to Xulu, the region’s heavy reliance on external pharmaceutical sources was laid bare by COVID-19 supply bottlenecks and ongoing geopolitical friction, highlighting that domestic manufacturing capability is essential to avert vital medicine shortages.
#𝗦𝗔𝗗𝗖 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗛𝗜𝗩 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗜𝗗𝗦 𝗶𝗻 𝗗𝘂𝗿𝗯𝗮𝗻 The #SADC… pic.twitter.com/RbjEO5sJNT
“Local manufacturing becomes important when you look at what is happening now geopolitically, with drugs not being able to shift. We are working to build empowered local suppliers backed by technical transfer and regional production capacity so that SADC does not find itself running short of critical medication,” Xulu said.
“There’s a lot of cooperation between SADC and health finance ministers who met in Harare in July, and there was agreement that really we do need to work closer together and not only to address the fact that we have had pullout in terms of development assistance like we saw with the US and other funders pulling out, but making sure that we mobilise more domestic investment,” Xulu explained.
Officials are reviewing progress toward HIV epidemic control and the 95-95-95 targets, alongside strategies for tuberculosis and malaria. This collaborative effort aims to bolster national health frameworks and drive forward the Sustainable Development Goals’ health objectives, with Xulu pointing out that continued institutional backing from UNAIDS remains essential to achieving these aims.
“We have seen their importance, and the SADC officials are essentially having the discussion around the fact that HIV and TB remain key priorities for us, and the role of coordination and us being assisted with technical assistance towards meeting the 95-95-95 goals is important for UNAIDS to continue to support us as the SADC region,” Xulu said.
Ministerial and technical discussions take place from 9 to 12 November, followed by SADC Malaria Day on November 13.
