Botswana declares public health emergency as medicine shortages cripple hospitals

Duma Boko, president of Botswana, has declared a state of public health emergency in response to severe medicine shortages that have crippled hospitals and clinics in the country.

In a televised address on Monday, Boko said the rare decision followed a review to ensure there were no legal or regulatory hurdles to swiftly meeting the country’s urgent medical needs.

The president blamed the health crisis on a hitch in the medical supply chain run by the central medical stores (CMS)

“This failure has led to a severe disruption to health supplies countrywide,” he said.

Earlier this month, Botswana’s health ministry said ongoing financial challenges facing the country had left the sector severely strained, postponing all non-urgent surgery.

The ministry added that the situation was compounded by the one billion pula (about $74.7 million) it owed private health facilities and suppliers.

Botswana’s economy is buckling under a prolonged slump in the diamond mining sector. It is second only to Russia as the largest diamond-producing country in the world by volume.

In April, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted that the Southern African country’s economy would grow by -0.4 percent in 2025, marking a second consecutive year of economic decline.

Botswana fares relatively well in terms of corruption compared to many other African countries.

But in recent years, its score on the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International has declined slightly indicating some deterioration in perceived public sector integrity.

In his speech, Boko said the CMS had quoted a staggering 705 million pula (about 52 million dollars) for a year’s supply of medication. Yet, a separate assessment by the presidential task force estimated the same supply at under 80 million pula (five million pula).

“CMS does not deny this inflation of prices and partly attributes it to policies passed under the previous government which mandated the inclusion of several middlemen in the procurement process under the guise of job creation,” he said.

Boko announced that trucks loaded with life-saving medicines would be dispatched across the country, in a process supervised by the military, to urgently restock health facilities by evening.

The health ministry had named medicines treating hypertension, cancers, diabetes, eye conditions, asthma, sexual and reproductive health concerns, tuberculosis, and mental health conditions to be in short supply.

The ministry added that commodities like dressings and sutures were also limited.