Botswana’s President Duma Boko declared a public health emergency on Monday, saying the national medical supply chain had failed, leaving hospitals and clinics short of medicine and other vital stock.<\/p>\n
Boko said the military would oversee an emergency distribution drive, and the first trucks would leave the capital Gaborone and head to remote areas by the evening.<\/p>\n
The southern African country’s health ministry warned in early August it was running out of medicines and supplies due to unspecified financial challenges, and postponed all non-urgent surgery.<\/p>\n
“The medical supply chain as run by central medical stores has failed,” Boko said in a televised address. “This failure has led to a severe disruption to health supplies countrywide.”<\/p>\n
The finance ministry had approved 250 million pula ($17.35 million) in emergency funding for procurement, he added.<\/p>\n
Botswana’s budget has been constrained this year due to a prolonged downturn in the global diamond market – it is the world’s leading producer of diamonds by value.<\/p>\n
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has also cut funding that was supporting Botswana’s health sector.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Botswana’s government did not immediately respond to questions about whether that had contributed to the crisis.<\/p>\n
Boko said on Monday the price at which government procures medical supplies was inflated, and that existing distribution systems were causing loss, waste and damage.<\/p>\n
In its statement on Aug. 4, the health ministry said it owed 1 billion pula to private health facilities and suppliers, which was compounding its challenges.<\/p>\n
Medicines for hypertension, cancer, diabetes, tuberculosis, eye conditions, asthma, sexual reproductive health and mental health conditions were all running out, it said.<\/p>\n
There were also shortages of dressings and sutures, it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Botswana’s President Duma Boko declared a public health emergency on Monday, saying the national medical supply chain had…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,25,30],"tags":[46,73,48,49,50],"class_list":["post-2119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-africa","category-national","category-world","tag-africa","tag-eswatini","tag-feature","tag-human-interest","tag-international","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"yoast_head":"\n