Chad, like the other member countries of the World Health Organization, celebrated World Health Day on Saturday, April 07, 2018, with the theme “Universal Health Coverage for everyone, everywhere”.
This celebration was marked by visits to the health services of the National General Reference Hospital in N’Djamena and official declarations from the Ministry of Public Health and the WHO.
In the statement by the Minister of Public Health, read by Dr Hamid Djabar, Secretary General of the Ministry of Public Health, he said emphasized that “to address the burden of mortality from communicable and non-communicable diseases due to low accessibility and coverage of essential health services, the coverage of essential services for populations must be significantly expanded, and universal health coverage has been proposed as the means to achieve this goal”. For him, the Chadian government is aware that achieving universal health coverage is a gradual process. It means making progress on several fronts, involving all sectors, civil society and development partners. To achieve this, the country needs to establish an efficient healthcare system that ensures equal access for the entire population to quality services, qualified healthcare personnel and effective medicines and health technologies. It also needs a financing system that protects people from financial hardship and impoverishment caused by the cost of healthcare, in order to move towards universal health coverage.
Dr Diallo Amadou Mouctar, Coordinator of the Health Cluster, who is acting for Dr Jean Bosco NDIHOKUBWAYO, WHO Representative in Chad, spoke of the major advances in health and health technologies since the Organization’s creation in 1948. These include the development of life-saving drugs to treat diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, hypertension and diabetes. These advances, which have improved the health of populations in the African Region, were underpinned by strategies such as the distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets – to prevent malaria – and vaccination against the human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer. Access to treatment and essential services has improved…The good news is that since August 2016, the Region has not recorded a single case of wild poliovirus infection, echoing the Statement by Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, on World Health Day 2018.
As if to mark its commitment alongside the actors in charge of implementing the National Strategy for Universal Health Coverage (SN-CSU) in Chad, the Ministry of Public Health seized the opportunity of the celebration of World Health Day to hold its steering committee meeting on the premises of the Interministerial Coordination Unit for SN-CSU on Monday, April 09, 2018. In front of the Staff of the Ministry of Public Health, the Coordination of the inter-ministerial unit presented its operational action plan and the draft bill instituting a universal health insurance scheme in Chad.
