The Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, has revealed that all organ transplant activities in Uganda have been halted until Shs5bn is availed for the training and operations of the Human Organ Transplant Council.
The Minister announced while appearing before Parliament’s Health Committee, where she explained that Shs5bn is required for the functionalization of the Human Organ Transplant Council of which, Shs3.6bn will be for training & benchmarking, whereas Shs1.4bn will be spent on operations of the Council.
“We have halted all transplant activities because we need a Council in place. Yesterday as you were touring the surgical exhibition, you saw the ready facilities, they can’t operate unless we have a Council and the Council has to be trained because it is virgin land in Uganda,” the minister said.
Donors Quit Funding Malaria
Dr. Aceng also told Parliament that the international donors have announced plans to end funding malaria projects in Uganda & have the government raise its funds to fight against malaria because the donors have now turned their focus on other global issues like wars in Ukraine & Gaza as well as climate change activities.
“Our partners are no longer willing to increase any more funding for malaria, they have all leveled off. We were invited to Cameroon recently, I was there in person and we were told the world has moved on to climate change issues, global health security and to wars in Ukraine and Israel.
So we were told to sign a declaration that each of the 10 high burden countries will look for their own domestic resources and bring their malaria pandemics or epidemics to an end by themselves. So, we aren’t looking for any additional increase of resources for malaria, it has to be domestic resources," Dr Aceng said.