Kigali, Rwanda—Jhpiego, a global leader in health innovation and a Johns Hopkins University affiliate, has partnered with the Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC) and Villgro Africa to launch the Africa Health Security Accelerator (AHSA), a transformative initiative aimed at strengthening epidemic preparedness and response across the continent.
AHSA is designed to address the significant burden of epidemic threats faced by Africa, which accounts for nearly 30% of the global total, by propelling innovation, epidemic intelligence, and public-private partnerships to enhance preparedness before crises strike.
“AHSA represents Africa’s response to its own call for a new public health order—one that is proactive, innovative, and rooted in local leadership,” said Dr. Virgile Kikaya, Global Health Security Technical Director at Jhpiego. “It places the continent’s innovators and public health institutions at the center of designing, testing, and scaling solutions to emerging health threats.”
The Accelerator is built on a simple but powerful vision: to help Africa respond to outbreaks more swiftly, transforming the continent’s capacity to prevent and address crises through locally driven innovation. By connecting ideas, expertise, and evidence, AHSA turns bold concepts into practical solutions that protect lives and strengthen trust in health systems.
AHSA will connect countries, sectors, and frontier capabilities to transform the health security ecosystem from reactive to resilient by utilizing five strategic levers:
- Accelerate: Fast-track promising solutions through rapid testing, evidence, and public-private collaboration to move from concept to scale.
- Connect: Unite governments, innovators, researchers, investors, and private actors in co-design platforms that foster partnership, problem-solving, and shared learning across Africa.
- Co-Create: Collaborate with start-ups, governments, and partners to refine problems and design and test forward-thinking approaches that strengthen health security systems.
- Mobilize: Unlock investment, talent, and frontier expertise to accelerate implementation and sustain innovation ecosystems.
- Generate: Produce actionable intelligence, from economic modeling to outbreak analytics, to inform decisions, guide investments, and strengthen resilience.
AHSA is uniquely positioned for success through the combined leadership of Africa CDC, RBC, Jhpiego, and Villgro Africa. By combining expertise in continental leadership, national excellence, technical depth, and innovation acceleration, this partnership is well-suited to move from ideas to impact quickly and precisely.
“Jhpiego has a proven track record of successfully facilitating coalitions of diverse partners and managing high-impact accelerators,” said Dr. Kikaya. “We are thrilled to bring our expertise to this transformative initiative.”
Together, these organizations will bridge governments, innovators, and investors to transform fragmented efforts into a cohesive engine for health security and resilience across Africa.
Hosted by RBC, AHSA launched with a co-creation workshop in October that convened top public health institutions, including Africa CDC, Johns Hopkins University, BioPrevail, Villgro Africa, and others. The workshop concluded with a shared vision for AHSA’s operational framework, governance, and investment strategy. Over the next year, AHSA will focus on launching key initiatives, under the leadership of RBC, with Africa CDC strengthening regional partnerships and launching priority initiatives.
This partnership represents a bold step toward continental health resilience. By fostering innovation and collaboration, AHSA positions Africa not only to respond to future epidemics but also to lead global health security efforts.
