Ethiopia renews its commitment to Universal Health Coverage
The Federal Ministry of Health of Ethiopia renews its commitment to actions towards universal health coverage (UHC). The re-definition of the Essential Health Service Packages (EHSP), which the Global Health Priorities Research Group is involved in, is defined as one...
PHL administers 12.7 million coronavirus vaccines
The Philippines provides 12.7 million coronavirus vaccines to the population as of July 8. Fully vaccinated individuals consist of more than 1.16 million health workers, 861,560 seniors, about one million seriously ill people, and 103,990 essential workers. For...
Sri Lanka devises comprehensive mechanism to vaccinate majority of population before September
Sri Lanka plans to vaccinate a majority of the country’s population against the COVID-19 virus before September. The received vaccines in July will be made available to the public. The vaccine priority is given to the districts identified as high risk areas...
Thailand plans to use public funds to cover cost of home care for COVID patients
National Health Security Office, Thailand will cover costs of home care for asymptomatic or mild-symptom COVID-19 patients, aiming to reduce crowd in the hospitals, especially in Bangkok and metropolitan area. Home care includes online consulting with physicians,...
Malaysia announces massive COVID-19 aid package as Thailand tightens restrictions
Malaysia announced a public spending 150 billion ringgit ($36.2 billion) for aid and stimulus package to battle the COVID-19 outbreaks. Moreover, Malaysia plans to allocate another 1 billion ringgit ($241 million) to ramp up its inoculation program,...
Indonesia increases public funding for hospitals in critical condition due to Covid-19
Indonesia increases healthcare budget to 193.93 trillion rupiah ($13.39 billion) for coronavirus treatment, testing, tracing, drugs, vaccines and protective gear. In addition, telemedicine service has been introduced to non-critical patients, aiming to reduce pressure...
Singapore increases public subsidies for health premiums to senior citizens
Singapore increases annual public subsidies of MediSave for seniors citizens from $250 to $1,100 based on age and pre-existing conditions. MediSave can be used to pay the premiums for MediShield Life and other MediSave-approved insurance plans, as well as medical...
Minimum sick leave entitlement to increase to 10 days in New Zealand
New Zealand has passed the Holidays Amendment Bill to increase the minimum employee sick leave entitlement from 5 days to 10 days per year, starting from 24 July 2021 onwards. For more information, please click Source: Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment,...
ILO-VSS co-organized training on customer care targeting Viet Nam’s health and social insurance members
Under the framework of ILO-Luxembourg project “Support to the extension of social health protection in Southeast Asia”, the ILO and Viet Nam Social Security (VSS) co-organized a three-day training on customer care skills for 25 VSS staff working on customer care. The...
The Government of Viet Nam specifies how Covid-19 related consultations and tests will be financed by the Health Insurance
https://vss.gov.vn/english/news/Pages/vietnam-social-security.aspx?ItemID=9913&CateID=198
Accelerating broad and equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine in Ethiopia
In an effort to accelerate fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, the World Bank is providing additional financing to the Ethiopia COVID-19 Emergency Response Project in the form of a grant totaling $207 million to finance vaccine acquisition and deployment...
Social assistance in Ethiopia during COVID-19
World Bank’s High-Frequency Phone Surveys on COVID-19, 2020 (HFPS) and the Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey, 2018-19 (ESS) are used to assess whether families got help during the pandemic, how quickly they got it, and whether government assistance benefited the...
New report on implementing minimum service standards now available in documents section
Indonesia has increased health insurance coverage to 83 % of the total population. Due to the rise of noncommunicable disease (NCD) prevalence, public health spending may need to shift the focus to primary health care. Indonesia has released several iterations of its...
Zambia gets additional financial support of $24 Million to procure and equitably distribute COVID-19 Vaccines
The government of Zambia has been approved to get additional financing of $24 million to acquire and equitably distribute COVID-19 vaccines. Of the total amount, $14 million is credit provided by the International Development Association (IDA), and $10 million is...
Development research project for health policies in Burkina Faso
The overall development objective of this PRD is to help improve public health policies in Burkina Faso. Its specific aim is to strengthen the institutionalization of quality evaluation practice in the healthcare sector. To this end, the project's main research...