During his speech to MPs on the occasion of the Special Parliamentary Day on Malaria at the National Assembly on 12 June 2024, the Minister of Public Health (Minsanté), Manaouda Malachie, called for an increase in resources allocated to the fight against this disease.
“Despite the efforts already made, the coverage of the population in prevention and treatment interventions is not yet optimal, due, among other things, to insufficient funding,” the minister told elected officials. The government member explained that “as part of the implementation of the latest Strategic Plan for the period 2021-2023, Cameroon has mobilized 132 billion FCFA out of the 232 billion FCFA needed to reduce this burden, thus showing a deficit of nearly 100 billion FCFA.”
This position was supported by MPs, such as Njume Peter, who stressed that “the budget allocated to the Ministry of Public Health must be increased”. To this end, he recalled the Abuja Declaration of 2001, in which African governments committed to allocating 15% of their budget to health expenditure. However, in Cameroon, this expenditure only represents 4%. However, Njume Peter advises the Minister of Health to devote more resources from the current budget to the fight against malaria.
Already in December 2023, while defending his ministry’s budget before the national representation, Minister Manaouda Malachie had acknowledged that “the budgetary resources allocated to the health sector, despite the government’s proven desire to modernize our health system, remain below international commitments, in particular the Abuja Declaration of 2001”.
SBBC