matahari.global

31/12/2025

Happy 2026!

As we close out 2025, we’re proud of a year defined by demanding, meaningful, and deeply collaborative global health work.

Our Principal Consultant, Dr .rahman, served as Technical Lead for the African Union Health Workforce Compact, supporting the finalisation of key roadmaps toward a continental agenda for health workforce development. Our human rights lead developed guidance and toolkits to strengthen community-led monitoring in pandemic preparedness and response. Our health systems lead, Dr Marguerite Massinga-Loembé, led critical path analysis on novel TB diagnostics, while Kathleen England and data analytics lead worked tirelessly on a dashboard supporting MDR-TB guideline implementation.

We head into 2026 energised by the challenges ahead and grateful for the partnerships that make this work possible.

31/10/2025

Nigeria, a country with a population of 238 million, is a TB high burden country. Deploying new portable rapid molecular tests (with the potential to use oral swabs in addition to sputum) will be key to closing the diagnostic gap.

This is especially so at the primary health care level and among hard-to-reach populations.
 
On 28-29th October 2025 in Abuja, we worked with the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health (National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme ( )) and partners, including the national TB national regulatory agencies (NAFDAC and ), World Health Organization, Africa CDC, CSOs and community health workers , to co-develop the Critical Path Analysis for novel TB diagnostics, mapping processes, actors and timelines for regulatory approval, uptake & scale up.

Information generated will be key to:
✅ streamline processes; and
✅ accelerate access for all populations in need.
 
Stay tuned for results of this assessment, including at The Union World Conference for Lung Health in Copenhagen on 17th and 18th November 2025.

28/10/2025

Community-led monitoring in pandemic preparedness and response can lead to earlier notifications of disease (including on reporting on animal deaths), and on quality of access to pandemic products.

In Nairobi this week, our human rights and gender lead is attending the COPPER project close out meeting, and sharing key elements of toolkits that we developed. These include:

✅ a toolkit for using CLM data for PPPR advocacy;
✅ an accompanying community guide; and
✅ a forthcoming PPPR 101 workshop guide

Working with to create these tools have been extremely valuable - but they must be operationalised to have real impact.

25/10/2025

At the Annual Meeting in Nairobi organised by the African Society of Laboratory Medicine, Dr. Marguerite Massinga-Loembe, our Senior Consultant for Health Systems Strengthening, emphasized the need for stronger regulatory collaboration to expedite access to novel TB diagnostics, including urine-based rapid tests that are more accessible to communities.

“Uptake of and access to new TB diagnostic tools in Africa can be delayed by up to nine years. Key enablers to accelerate country-level approval, adoption into policy, and programmatic scale-up include stronger engagement between National TB Programs (NTPs) and national regulators (NRAs), and the harmonization of continental regulatory processes for IVDs and medical devices,” she said.

11/09/2025

Newer TB tests have the potential of being more accessible to communities, including rural communities and children, because the results are returned quicker and they use urine- or tongue swab samples rather than sputum.

However regulatory, procurement, and demand creation barriers can prevent access.

We are conducting a critical path analysis in five African countries (Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa), to understand processes and timelines for novel test introduction.

Project lead Marguerite Massinga Loembe will be presenting our findings at The Union World Conference on Lung Health in 🇩🇰, in November 2025.

Be there!

👉🏽 This project is supported by Gates Foundation and McGill University.

22/04/2025

We are pleased to support the development of a toolkit describing advocacy approaches to community-led monitoring in pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

We will introduce elements of this toolkit in the webinar below. All are welcome to attend, register now!

Join the 8th webinar by the COPPER Knowledge Hub (hosted by ! AP & ACT-Africa)!

They will be diving into how Pandemic Preparedness & Response (PPR) can be integrated into Community-Led Monitoring (CLM).

🎙️ With expert speakers:
🔹 Alice Kayongo /CLAW)
🔹 Fifa Rahman (METAL / .global )

🗓️ April 24, 2025
🕙 17:00 BKK | 10:00 GMT | 12:00 CET
🔗 Register now: https://shorturl.at/c8mFi

Africa Coalition on TB Women4GF Pandemic Action Network

03/12/2024

Matahari has been proud to support the development of work on the African Union Health Workforce Compact, including three regional consultations with Member States in Cape Town, South Africa (East and Southern Africa) Saly, Senegal (West Africa), and Tunis, Tunisia (North and Central Africa). In December 2024, we will be finalising the Baseline Report and Compact document towards more coordinated efforts across the continent and the establishment of a centralised training mechanism for the African Continent.

12/11/2024

The Matahari team, represented by Dr Marguerite Massinga Loembe, Senior Consultant for Health Systems Strengthening and Dr Fifa A Rahman, Principal Consultant, collaborating with Dr Alaine Nyaruhirira from , are in Bali on the sidelines of the conference to discuss the Critical Path Analysis project for new TB diagnostics conducted in four African countries (Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, and South Africa). Innovative point of care or near point of care tests, including ones that are oral swabs or urine-based, are key to expand access to all, including at community level, close the diagnostic gap & enable prompt treatment initiation to

26/07/2024

This past year has seen many successes in the HIV 95-95-95 targets.

We worked closely with UNAIDS to document the stories of real heroes of the HIV response, from indigenous leaders in Perú in supporting indigenous communities living in complex environments, developers of an interactive game/app in Côte d’Ivoire that reached more than 200,000 young people and adolescents with HIV information, and of community leaders in Guatemala who worked on streamlining treatment regimens there.

Read more about the work of these champions, and the critical work of UNAIDS below.

Read personal stories from people making a difference in the response to AIDS.

11/07/2024

Matahari is co-leading the work to develop the health workforce compact for the African continent, guided by African Union member states. This will include a centralised training mechanism for certain cadres, a health workforce task team to systematically raise financing (including blended financing) for health workforce investment, and a metrics dashboard to track progress. Next steps will include regional meetings with all 55 Member States.