Funding for disease outbreaks to expire next month

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The overwhelming number of disease outbreaks is stretching the budget for health emergencies.

This is according to Dr Allan Muruta the Commissioner Public Health Emergencies at the Ministry of Health.

Muruta says that a loan worth 15 million dollars which they secured from the World Bank that they have been using to fund interventions is running out.

This loan expires in March and yet the country is currently grappling with a number of outbreaks including the Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever outbreak, yellow fever and yet still they have to ensure global public health emergencies such as Ebola which is still ravaging the neighbouring DR Congo and the coronavirus fever that started in China are kept at bay.

Muruta told Uganda Radio Network that for Ebola preparedness efforts alone, they have so far used up to 36 million US dollars. He says that part of the money as from donors.

For coronavirus preparedness, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng told journalists at a press briefing on Wednesday that they had approved to use 25 billion shillings for Coronavirus screening, follow up of cases and running isolation centres.

Muruta explains that Uganda is particularly at risk of having a lot more of such infections.

However even as this is Uganda’s reality, these eventualities are never planned for and therefore send government into panic mode whenever they occur looking for funding.

Muruta says they always have to rely on donors for most of the funding.  He notes that for Ebola currently with reducing funds, they had to cut down on screening as it was becoming very expensive for the country considering that the efforts put in by the Congo counterparts were minimal.

This financial year, emergency medical services were allocated 1 billion shillings in the budget, and the same amount is being proposed in the FY2020/21 budget.

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