WINDHOEK - Infectious and parasitic diseases including HIV/AIDS received the highest allocation of funds taking up 23 percent of the total health expenditure in the 2015/2016 financial year.
This is stated in a new report by the Ministry of Health and Social Services.
The high expenditure on HIV and infectious disease was closely followed by non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and reproductive health, which consumed 20 percent and 16 percent, respectively.
NCDs are those, which are not spread and are non-contagious, but are caused due to allergy, long-illness, abnormalities in cell proliferation, inherited, and malnutrition.
The report is titled ‘Namibia’s health and HIV financing landscape: Evidence from the 2015/16 and 2016/17 resource tracking exercises.’
The total health expenditure in Namibia in 2015/16 was just over N$15 billion of which 96 percent was recurrent spending. Recurrent spending is the spending on goods and services consumed within the year of the analysis.
Further, it is stated in the report that in 2016/17, the allocation for infectious and parasitic diseases increased to 26 percent, while spending on NCDs and reproductive health declined to 19 percent and 14 percent, respectively. The expenditure on injuries was about the same in the two years, six percent and seven percent, as was spending on nutritional deficiencies at less than one percent in both years. “Spending that is non-disease specific includes spending that cannot be allocated to a specific disease but benefits health in general, such as expenditures on the office of the minister, administrative expenses, and national-level overhead. This spending amounted to 23 percent in both 2015/16 and 2016/17,” according to the report.
Within the infectious and parasitic disease category, HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) received the largest proportion of spending, 46 percent in 2015/16 and 50 percent in 2016/17, according to information contained in the report.
These percentages equate to 10.5 and 13 percent of the total health expenditure for the respective years.
In 2015/16, respiratory infections accounted for the second highest level of spending in that category at 15 percent, followed by diarrheal diseases at 14 percent. In 2016/17, spending on both decreased, to 12 percent for respiratory infections and 11 percent for diarrheal diseases.
TB spending, which accounted for 11 percent in 2015/16, rose slightly to 13 percent in 2016/17, and spending on vaccine-preventable diseases was seven percent and six percent in the respective years.
Spending on malaria was low in both years, at three percent and then four percent. Spending on neglected tropical diseases was less than one percent in both years, it is highlighted in the document.
Cardiovascular diseases consumed the largest proportion of spending on NCDs at 22 percent in 2015/16 and 18 percent in 2016/17, followed by cancer, which accounted for 14 percent in both years.