Luanda — Angolan Health Minister Sílvia Lutucuta on Tuesday highlighted the advances made by the health sector in recent years, with particular emphasis on expanding the workforce and training specialized personnel.
According to a press release from the Angolan Embassy in Brazil, the Minister was speaking at the inaugural class of the 2026 Cycle of the Brazil-Angola Human Resources Training Program in Health, held at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo (FMUSP).
Sílvia Lutucuta, who was presenting the investments and results in the health sector, emphasized that Angola recently held the three largest public recruitment processes in the sector's history, which allowed for a 43.6% increase in the health workforce, a step considered essential to achieving universal health service coverage.
She spoke about the start of postgraduate training in nursing, structured into 10 specialization programs.
Follow us on WhatsApp | LinkedIn for the latest headlines
The initiative, she said, should allow the qualification of 3,954 nurses in priority areas such as medical-surgical nursing, community health, pediatrics, maternal and neonatal health, emergency and trauma, nephrology, intensive care, infectious diseases, dermatology with an emphasis on wound care, anesthesiology, and resuscitation.
The minister stressed that this effort is part of an ambitious national program that foresees the specialization of 38,000 health professionals by 2028.
Of this total, 20% will receive training abroad, while 80% will be trained in Angola, simultaneously strengthening the internal capacity of the system.
Within the framework of the cooperation program with Brazil, Sílvia Lutucuta revealed that 11,648 Angolan professionals are already directly benefiting from training initiatives, including 1,174 professionals currently undergoing training abroad.
She added that of that number, 783 are pursuing their studies in Brazil, a number that is expected to increase further this year, with more than 800 new professionals having their training processes in preparation.
The minister announced that the cooperation involves 68 Brazilian teaching and research institutions, distributed across 23 states, which host Angolan professionals in short, medium, and long-term internship programs, specializations, and fellowship programs.
She added that for the 2026 academic year, Brazilian institutions offered 1,403 training places, of which 771 have already been filled by Angolan professionals selected to begin their studies in Brazil, and recalled the cooperation agreement signed in April 2024, which consolidated the partnership between the two countries in training personnel and scientific exchange.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
The event brought together authorities from the governments of Angola and Brazil, officials from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, technicians from the human resources training project, and Angolan scholarship holders undergoing training at Brazilian academic institutions.
