Botswana has declared a public health emergency, with President Duma Boko saying the national medical supply chain collapsed due to depleted government coffers and steep cuts in aid from the United States.
The announcement came on Monday after the Ministry of Health and Wellness warned earlier this month that the system was “severely strained” with $75m owed to private health facilities and suppliers.
It cited shortages of medicines for a range of illnesses, including hypertension, cancer, diabetes, tuberculosis, asthma, mental and sexual health, and stated that elective surgeries were postponed.
The Health Ministry also said there were shortages of dressings and sutures.
“The medical supply chain, as run by central medical stores, has failed,” President Boko said in a televised address on Monday. “This failure has led to a severe disruption to health supplies countrywide.”
The Ministry of Finance had earlier approved 250 million pula ($18.7m) in emergency funding for procurement, said Boko, adding that the military would oversee the distribution of emergency medicines, with the first shipments dispatching immediately from the capital, Gaborone, with priority given to deprived rural areas.
“The current prices [for medicine] often are inflated five to 10 times. Under the current economic conditions, this scenario is not sustainable,” Boko added.
The crisis is also linked to a shrinking national budget caused by the ongoing downturn in the global diamond market.
Botswana, with a population of 2.5 million, is one of the world’s largest diamond producers. Its vast diamond reserves, discovered just after independence from Britain in 1966, make up about 80 percent of the country’s foreign earnings.
But sales have weakened in recent years, pushing a cash-strapped government to suspend certain ministerial purchases last month.
Sweeping cuts in aid from the US under President Donald Trump have further strained the economy. Before the cuts, the US funded a third of Botswana’s HIV response, according to UNAIDS, and provided $12m through The Global Fund to fight malaria and tuberculosis.
The United Nations agency for children (UNICEF) said “urgent action” was needed to address the deepening medical crisis in the country, adding that one in five children was underweight in a western district near the Namibian border.
