By Patricia Kapulula

Lilongwe, March 26, Mana: Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN) has expressed concern over lack of an allocation to the public health emergency response in the 2024/2025 national budget.

MHEN Executive Director, George Jobe, sounded the concern in Lilongwe Monday evening when it, in partnership with Oxfam, Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM), SAT Malawi and SRHR Alliance, presented the 2024/2025 budget analysis report on the health sector.

MHEN and partners met leaders of parliamentary committees to present the report.

Jobe said, much as Covid-19 and Cholera have subsided, the country still experience natural disasters such as floods and cyclones which require funding to address health related challenges associated with such disasters.

“There is no public health emergency allocation at the moment compared to previous years. We should not only look at Covid-19 that it is not there and Cholera is not affecting us, but also at disasters that we are experiencing. These require the health sector to have emergency response funding,” he said.

He, therefore, called upon parliament to critically look at this and consider an allocation to the response.

SRHR Alliance Executive Director, Hastings Saka, emphasised on the need to put in place strategies that would address demands in supplies and commodities in the health sector in order for the country to achieve universal health coverage by 2030.

Chairperson for Parliamentary Committee on Budget and Finance, Gladys Ganda, appreciated concerns raised saying as Members of Parliament they will lobby the house to consider funding and increasing funding to critical areas.

“The analysis has helped us appreciate areas that government has done well and to see gaps that are there.

“Some of the gaps that we have noted are to do with achievement of the universal health coverage by 2030,” she said.

She said much as the country is going towards that, as the budget allocation to the health sector has increased, there is need to note where that allocation is going to.

The health sector has been allocated 12.2 percent of the 2024/2025 total budget.