Inside govt’s Shs9b public health plan
Third Deputy Prime Minister and Minister without Portfolio, Ms Rukia Nakadama, signs on a board to mark the launch of the Uganda National Action Plan for Health, Security, Monitoring and Operational Planning in Mukono District on Friday. PHOTO | ISAAC KASAMANI
What you need to know:
- Officials say the money will be used to facilitate routine activities aimed at strengthening the health system such as continuous collection and testing of samples from animals and humans
The government has launched an operational plan for implementIon of Uganda’s National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS 2019-2023).
The launch comes at a time the country is grappling with an outbreak of the Sudan Ebola virus, with the Health ministry having confirmed 11 cases and counting by press time.
That tally pushes to 600 cases of the disease registered since 2000. The deaths, including that of a 24-year-old male from Mubende District this week, now number 250.
While addressing journalists at the launch of a one-year (2022-2023) operational plan in Mukono District on Friday, Dr Immaculate Nabukenya—the team leader of NAPHS—said the end goal is to gain capability to prevent, detect and respond to public health emergencies such as Ebola and Covid-19 outbreaks.
The implementation of the plan will be steered by nearly 10 government ministries, departments and agencies through Makerere University Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) and the Health ministry.
“We have realised that Uganda has had so many disease outbreaks. There are also many emerging health emergencies that can impact on us. Some can come from animals, the food we eat, the drugs we consume or many more activities that we do within our environment,” Dr Nabukenya revealed, adding, “Uganda decided to become a member of the 196 countries that signed the International Health Regulations, an international law that bind us and tasks member states to develop capacities that help to prevent, detect and respond to any public emergency so that diseases do not cross from Uganda to other countries or from other countries to Uganda.”
She further noted that the plan, culled from the five-year national plan, will “strategically focus and prioritise a few activities that we can implement.”
The budget for the one-year plan will require an estimated Shs9 billion as per Dr Bukenya. The resources will be used to facilitate routine activities aimed at strengthening the health system such as continuous collection and testing of samples from animals and humans.
The plan will also address itself to 19 technical areas under the three classifications of prevention, detection and response.
“Under prevention, we focus on activities like immunisation, disease surveillance, among others,” Dr Bukenya said. “Under detection, we focus on improving laboratory services and conducting disease surveillance and others while response entails risk communication, public health management, improving emergency operations centres, among others.”
A contingency fund for emergencies such as those occasioned by Covid-19 and Ebola is also factored in the plan.
Health minister, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng—who was represented by the commissioner of Non Communicable Diseases, Charles Ayoo—said the number of cases and deaths caused by epidemics such as Ebola and Covid-19 have progressively gone down with every new outbreak, suggesting improved health security capacity in Uganda.
“Even before and soon after the suppression of Covid-19, Uganda did well to evert various outbreaks using a ‘one health’ approach to deal with zoonotic diseases like recurrent outbreaks of anthrax, yellow fever, and other hemorrhagic fevers like rift valley and Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever,” Dr Aceng said, adding, “I call upon other government ministries, departments and agencies to keep up their commitment to invest in health security.”
She also noted that since 2017, progress has been made in national legislation, policy, financing and points of entry.
“The Public Health Act was recently amended and passed by Parliament, awaiting presidential assent, the principles for the Animal Diseases Act were approved by Cabinet, a BSL 3 laboratory was launched at Queen Elizabeth National Park, the Ministry of Water and Environment started surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in water and environment,” she said.
The minister also revealed that the country had also designated five points of entry to strengthen border health services in addition to the Ministry of Health’s and partners’ rollout of the third edition of the International Disease Surveillance and Response and the 7-1-7 global timeliness framework.
Dr Henry Mwebesa, the director General of Health Services in the ministry of Health, urged the public not to panic, saying the current Ebola outbreak is under control.
