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If there is one area that vividly sums up Africa’s development challenges, it is the field of health. Lack of access to basic health care, mostly caused by poor funding, contributes to millions of deaths, untold suffering, and harrowing health tragedies on the continent every year. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Africa carries 25% of the world’s disease burden, but its share of global health expenditures is less than 1%. • Worse still, it manufactures only a fraction of less than 2% of medicines consumed on the continent. • A majority of Africans, mostly the poor and those in the middle-income bracket, rely on under-funded public health facilities, while a small minority has access to well-funded, quality private health care.