Africa-Press – Tanzania. CONTRIBUTIONS to the Health Basket Fund (HBF), a fund supported by several development partners to promote primary health care services, have resulted in significant achievements in the country, the most notable being an increase in life expectancy.
This was revealed at a high-level meeting in Dar es Salaam yesterday by Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Dr Dorothy Gwajima, as part of a commemoration of the HBF’s 22nd anniversary.
“We are delighted to have seen significant and positive changes in the health sector over the past 22 years, including an increase in life expectancy from 50.2 years in 1999 to 64.5 years in 2020,” she said.
She went on to say that during the same period, the number of health facilities owned by the government, religious institutions, and the private sector increased from 3,289 to 8,458, and that delivery in health facilities increased from 44 per cent to 83 per cent, and that the proportion of births assisted by trained medical personnel increased from 36 per cent to 83 per cent.
On the other side, she stated that stunting in children under the age of five years has fallen from 50 per cent to 31.8 per cent, and acute malnutrition (wasting) has decreased from 14 per cent to 3.5 per cent.
In addition, the percentage of children aged 6 to 59 months who received vitamin A in the previous six months increased from 14 per cent to 63.8 per cent.
According to her, the under-five mortality rate has dropped from 147 to 67 deaths per 10,000 live births, and infant mortality rate has dropped from 99 to 43 deaths per 1,000 live births. The prevalence rate of contraception has increased from 22 per cent in 1999 to 42 per cent today.
HBF was established in 1999 when the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) was initiated to provide a framework for collaboration and coordination among the government and stakeholders to support one-health sector programme by increasing government ownership.
Tanzania invited development partners participating in the SWAp process to pool resources in support of jointly developed sector plans, particularly the primary health care services.
Supporting primary health care was in line with the then Alma Ata Declaration, now Astana Declaration, which focuses on efforts on Primary Health Care, to ensure that everyone everywhere can enjoy the highest possible attainable standard of health.
Dr Gwajima indicated that Tanzania was making strong progress toward national and international goals, such as implementing the UNAIDS 90-90-90 strategy, which was planned to be completed by 2020.
“The country achieved by 84-98-95, where the second and third 90’s achieved beyond targets, while the first 90 achieved by 6 per cent less from the set target, Tuberculosis treatment success rate for all forms improved from 84.7 per cent in 2008 to 91 per cent to date, while, Malaria parasite prevalence among children Under Five decreased from 14.8 per cent in 2015 to 8 per cent to date,” she explained
She added, “Budget allocation on health commodities increased from 31bn/- in 2015/16 to 233bn/- in 2020/21.”
Minister Gwajima said the HBF began by allocating 0.5 US dollars per capita to local government authorities, then increased to 1.0 US dollars per capita. The fund donated a total of 1.54 billion US dollars to the health sector over a 22-year period.
“The majority of the HBF resources go to the local government level, which is where primary health care services are provided, 90 per cent of all HBF monies are currently devoted to primary health care,” she stated.
According to her, the HBF has also supported the rehabilitation and/or expansion of 304 health facilities to enable the provision of Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care (CEmONC) services, which has increased health facility deliveries from 55 per cent in 2015 to 83 per cent in 2020.
