Africa-Press – Tanzania. AUTHORITIES in Kagera region have commended the government for allocating a total of 11.8bn/- for improvement of the health sector in the past five years.
Kagera Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS), Professor Faustin Kamuzora said that of the amount at least 5.9bn/ was spent in construction of three district hospitals in Bukoba DC, Karagwe and Kyerwa councils.
Equally, he said the budget allocated for medicines has increased from 2.3bn/- in 2015 to 8bn/- in 2020.
“By ensuring that health facilities are equipped to deliver comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care services, we can effectively address the fatal complications of childbirth, including severe bleeding, infection, prolonged or obstructed labor, eclampsia, and asphyxia in the newborn,” he said.
Prof Kamuzora further explained that malaria prevalence in Kagera region had been considerably reduced from 42 per cent recorded in 2007 to 15.4 per cent last year.
However, he said more efforts were still needed to ensure that malaria is completely eliminated.
He noted that there were about 15,000 villages in the country, noting that the government cannot afford to construct a dispensary for each village due to limited resources. Instead, the government concentrated to construct health centres at Ward level.
Statistics show that lack of affordable, quality health care continues to trap many in poverty.
Globally, as many as 100 million people a year are pushed into poverty due to high health care costs and about 30 per cent of households in Africa and Asia have to borrow money or sell assets to pay for health.
Countries across the continent are still struggling to drive down maternal and child mortality, malaria and malnutrition while addressing the rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes and cancer.
In addition, although Africa accounts for 24 per cent of the global burden of disease, it has only three per cent of the global health workforce and 11 million Africans are pushed into poverty and remain poor every year due to health care costs.
