Prior to the pandemic, several African countries had made considerable progress toward universal health coverage. Although the African continent was the least affected by the coronavirus, the pandemic exposed and accentuated the weaknesses of health systems in terms of lack of preparedness, response, and especially health and economic resilience.
However, the pandemic has not called into question the objective of UHC; on the contrary, the crisis could be seen as a strong argument for accelerating efforts to strengthen the health system and move towards UHC by 2030.