In 2002, in the early years of his public health career, Dr. Tsague was pivotal in designing and rolling out the national program for preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) in Cameroon when African countries had limited access to effective antiretroviral drugs for PMTCT. Fourteen years later, his Ph.D. work allowed him to reflect on what it would take to achieve universal access to effective PMTCT antiretroviral strategies and prevent African children and their mothers from dying of AIDS.

In 2019, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Africa was still facing the burden of the HIV pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic further uncovered the fragility of national health systems. It exacerbated glaring inequalities between Africa and the rest of the world in accessing COVID-19 diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics and other essential countermeasures. Dr. Tsague joined the African CDC-led continental advocacy to foster learning from the HIV experience and demand equity in access to COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. Dr. Tsague will reflect on the key lessons learned on this journey, from leveraging strategic partnerships, fostering innovation for change in knowledge sharing and improving health outcomes, building coalitions with civil society and community actors and engaging adolescents and young people. He will enrich this reflection with the strategic directions for the future of public health in Africa, encapsulated in the Africa CDC’s vision for a new public health order.

Landry Tsague Dongmo MD., MPH., PhD.

Dr. Tsague earned his Ph.D. in Public Health in 2016 from the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. He is UNICEF Senior Health Adviser to the African Union (AU), Africa CDC and the UN Economic Commission for Africa. Dr. Tsague previously served as UNICEF Regional Adviser for Health and HIV/AIDS in the West and Central Africa regional office. Dr. Tsague brings a diverse and rich leadership and programming track record on HIV/AIDS, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH), Immunization, and Health System Strengthening in Africa. He is most known as a passionate advocate for adopting more efficacious solutions to end pediatric HIV and AIDS in Africa. He co-founded in 2006, the Pan-African Medical Journal, one of the leading open-access journals in global health and serves on the Scientific Committee of the International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA). Dr Tsague received numerous recognitions in Public Health, the International Aids Society Young Investigator Award (2005), the Emory University’s William Foege Fellowship Award (2005), the New Investigator in Global Health Award (2006), the Emory University Shepard Award for Scientific Merit (2007), and the Western Cape University Public Health Social Innovation’s Award (2014). Before UNICEF, Dr. Tsague served as Chief Medical Officer for Cameroon’s PMTCT program in the Ministry of Health. Landry earned his Doctorate in Medicine in 2002 and a master’s in public health from the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, USA in 2007.