South Africa and the African continent must play a far greater role in shaping the future of global health, according to Ntobeko Ntusi, president and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council.

Speaking during a Trailblazers episode of the Global Health Matters podcast with Dr Garry Aslanyan, Ntusi said his world-view was shaped first by his parents, then by teachers and mentors, and later by his experience treating patients with HIV at a time when treatment was not yet available in South Africa.

He said watching patients die during those years fuelled “a desire to have universal access and universal healthcare, but also a desire to ensure equity in all aspects of health and science.”

Ntusi said successful science councils must do more than fund research. They must explain the value of science to society, help governments understand why health research matters and align their work with national priorities.

In South Africa, he said, that means focusing on the country’s “quadruple burden of disease,” including HIV and tuberculosis, non-communicable diseases, mental health, violence, trauma, and maternal and child health. He said the council is also prioritising climate and health, digital health and AI, antimicrobial resistance, pandemic preparedness and universal health coverage.

Ntusi said violence remains one of South Africa’s deepest challenges and cannot be treated as a health issue alone. “These are not just health issues,” he said. “They are societal issues, and they need a whole of government and a whole of society.”

He also called for a major shift in how the world thinks about global health. Ntusi said he prefers the term “global majority” over Global South, noting that 85% of the world’s population lives in low- and middle-income countries.

“The first acknowledgement is that global health is failing in measures of equity by whatever measure one uses,” he said.

For Ntusi, leadership starts with clarity. The most important quality a leader can have, he said, is “self-awareness.”

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Image Credits: Global Health Matters.