US aid cuts to Africa marked the end of an "outdated" development system and should push the continent to take charge of its own services, the heads of the World Health Summit said on Wednesday.

The overriding theme of the three-day summit in Nairobi, attended by 15 African health ministers and thousands of NGO and academic delegates, was "health sovereignty" for the continent, which sees an opportunity in the loss of donor funding.

Massive aid cuts by Western donors, especially President Donald Trump's decision to scrap the $40bn-a-year USAID agency, have been highly controversial in the West, but have been welcomed by many Africans who say aid has fuelled lethargy in their governments for decades.

Lukoye Atwoli, the summit's co-host, said, countries like Kenya have implemented comprehensive insurance and modern facilities, even if there are still plenty of teething troubles.

'Wake-up call'

The cuts are a second "wake-up call" after the harsh lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Africa was last in line for vaccines, added World Health Summit president Axel Pries.

Aid cuts were "something which would have happened anyhow at a certain point in time. But the way it was done was completely unacceptable," he added, highlighting the "brutal" stop that left millions suddenly unable to access life-saving medical treatments.

Pries also faulted the new US bilateral approach to aid in which it has pulled out of global institutions like the World Health Organisation and instead sought deals with individual countries, reportedly demanding access to resources and health data in exchange for funds.

Several African nations have raised the alarm, saying their data will be harvested to create treatments that will not be shared with them.

"So I'm a little worried about individual treaties which make... data a commodity which is no longer available to the broader family of nations," said Pries.