African health ministers meeting in Mozambique on Wednesday described a planned 30% increase in spending on their continent by the UN’s World Health Organisation as important, but not enough, given the massive problems to be faced.
”It is the biggest ever WHO budget share,” said Rwandan Health Minister Jean Damascene Ntawukuliryayo at a regional meeting of the agency in Maputo.
But ”one can never say it is enough”.
The organisation is to focus on malaria and HIV/Aids in Africa with a budget increase to $949,5-million for 2006-2007, the organisation’s Africa director Luis Sambo said on Tuesday.
Africa would receive the organisation’s largest regional budget increase in the world compared to 2004-2005, Sambo said at the 55th meeting of the WHO regional committee.
Mozambican Deputy Health Minister Aida Libombo said: ”It will be necessary to rationalise and strengthen management, transparency and accountability.”
”A budget is never sufficient and that is why there is a need for an equitable division of the funds in function of the needs and the urgency of the health situation in each country,” Mamadou Traore of Mali said.
”It is appreciated that the African region is getting the second highest budget only to the headquarters,” said South African Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in a statement.
”This high allocation, however, is not sufficient in comparison to the high burden of diseases.”
The ministers also concentrated on tuberculosis, that kills about 540 000 people each year in Africa, or about 1 500 a day on average.
The HIV/Aids pandemic in Africa contributes to the spread and transmission of TB in Africa, with the WHO calculating there are 2,4-million new cases each year.
The agency made the campaign against TB a global priority in 1993 and treatments have been developed around the world. But in Africa the disease continues to progress, according to WHO director-general Lee Jong-Wook.
”The incidence of the disease reached 345 cases per 100 000 inhabitants in 2003 and mortality rates are far and away the highest in the world,” he said.
”Universal access to medicines is a determining factor in the battle against TB,” said Ntawukuliryayo of Rwanda.
”On the one hand we have to call for more funds to resolve the problem, on the other, drugs and treatment should be free to benefit the maximum number of patients.”
A report published during the meeting disclosed that Africa imports 90% of its medicines, and poor countries account for only 2,6% of the world’s production.
Furthermore, of the 4,4-million people in Africa living with HIV/Aids, about eight percent at most have access to antiretroviral drugs.
South Africa alone carries out the whole cycle of production, from manufacturing the active agents to the finished product.
”Drug production is an area which needs a lot of money and a lot of research,” said Mozambican minister Ivo Garrido.
”For that reason we need to attract foreign investment to build drug manufacturing plants in Africa.” – Sapa-AFP