24 Nov 2019

Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Lemogang Kwape says Botswana is capable of eliminating Mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis, neglected tropical diseases and Malaria in two to three years.

Speaking at the health partners meet and greet on November 22, Dr Kwape said the fight would require more focus on the areas to get results.

He therefore said it was important to also get systems to work well and optimally together as well as to take a multi-sectoral determinant of health in all policies approach to health and development. 

He said that alone would ensure leveraging of comparative advantages across sectors for the benefit of all.

In other issues, he said international conferences and conventions had reemphasised the need for collaboration towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

He said United Health Coverage was a key priority consistent with the declaration by the United Nations General assembly.

This, he said, was emphasised by Astana Declaration on Primary Healthcare, adding that Global action plan for sustainable development launched at the recent UN General Assembly that put emphasis on collaboration by partners was consistent with Health systems strengthening.

Furthermore, he said the development of the health sector strategy for Botswana was a step in the right direction.

He said as such, special focus on the district health system strengthening would be key to ensuring revitalisation of primary healthcare and reaching communities where services were needed. Dr Kwape emphasised the need to improve data management and reduce or harmonise data system and link the ministry with eHealth platform, adding that such required adherence to what was stipulated in the data management policies by all in the sector.

“The dream is to have a national health observatory that would help with important health sector updates and ensure sustained monitoring of sector achievements towards SDGs.

Furthermore, he said it was important that all stakeholders strengthened the country’s emergency preparedness and response capability by building core capacities and the need for the establishment of the emergency operation centres.

“WHO expert team is currently in the country to do vulnerability and risk assessment for better preparedness and response to these events. 

Simulation exercises will be important for rare events like Ebola, which will test the robustness of our system before any such event occurs”, he said.

The permanent secretary in the ministry, Ms Ruth Maphorisa said she was happy that the minister joined the ministry at a time when there was ample opportunity to make a turnaround in the health sector. 

“The time is right in the sense that we are at the mid-term review of the National Development Plan, and we have the opportunity to work together to improve the health outcomes,” she said.

Ms Maphorisa said they were just coming from the UN assembly, where the global action plan for SDGs, which emphasises  collaboration, was launched. ends