Why you don’t fix hospitals when you need them! ‘You don’t fix your health system when you need it…’ Wise words from Dr John Nkengasong, Director of Africa Center for Disease Control (ACDC) said in a June 2, 2021 ‘HARDTalk’ interview with the BBC’s Sudanese-born presenter Zeinab Badawi about Africa’s experience with and response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. At the time, African nations – like The Caribbean — continued waiting in vain for delivery of vaccines promised under the United Nations’ COVAX distribution scheme. Sponsored | Article continues below Nkengasong spoke while Africa waited, its hospitals were not all in good conditions and many African Union (AU) member-states also suffered from rundown health facilities that were either neglected or inadequate, while in many others there were simply not enough.