In an effort to equitably provide vaccines in the first round of COVID 19 vaccinations, the Kuwaiti government has extended the provision of free vaccines to expatriates. Although Kuwaiti citizens will be given priority once the COVID-19 vaccines arrive in Kuwait and...
Progressing towards CSU in the era of COVID-19 in French-speaking Africa: what are the major challenges?
Kéfilath Bello, Fadhi Dkhimi, Y-LingChi, Jean-Paul Dossou, HélèneBarroy On May 20, 2021, WHO, P4H, the Center for Global Development, the Global Financing Facility (GFF) and Collectivity have organized a webinar entitled...
A critical analysis of purchasing arrangements in Kenya: The case of micro health insurance
Strategic purchasing can ensure that financial resources are used in a way that optimally enhances the attainment of health system goals among them the attainment of universal health coverage. A number of low- and middle-income countries, including Kenya, have...
Financing nursing care more than doubled in Estonia in 2021
According to materials prepared by Triin Habicht, a renown health economist from Estonia (WHO consultant) and her colleague Kaija Kasekamp (University of Tartu), the Estonian Insurance Fund started financing nursing services in assisted living facilities since 2020...
Kazakhstan assessed the status of Mandatory Social Health Insurance reform
On September 7, 2021, a regular meeting of the Board of the Ministry of Healthcare was held in Kazakhstan. The meeting was attended by the Minister of Healthcare Alexey Tsoy (on the photo), his First Vice-minister Marat Shoranov, Vice-Minister Azhar Giniyat, as well...
Nigeria’s financing of health care during the COVID-19 pandemic: challenges and recommendations
In this study, the authors analyse the financing of Nigeria’s healthcare system in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They use the three health care financing functions: revenue collection, pooling, and purchasing. The findings show that Nigeria projected that it...
Botswana pays equivalent of $15 a dose for Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine
As most African countries struggle to procure enough vaccines in the global scramble for vaccines, Botswana’s health minister Edwin Dikoloti (30th of July, 2021) said that the government was paying the equivalent of $15 a dose for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by...
Laos plans to purchase vaccine for 2022
Laos plans to purchase additional Covid-19 vaccines in 2022 because vaccines from the COVAX initiative will be ended by this year. Currently, a total of 1,387,083 people received the first dose or 18.9% of the total population. While the second dose vaccinations...
Who pays for and who benefits from health care services in Uganda?
Equity in health care entails payment for health services according to the capacity to pay and the receipt of benefits according to need. It is an essential element of universal health coverage. In Uganda, as in many African countries, although equity is extolled in...
Burkina Faso: Towards validation of a general nomenclature of acts for healthcare professionals
The Caisse nationale d'assurance maladie universelle organized a workshop in Ouagadougou on Tuesday, August 10, 2021, to validate the results of the general nomenclature of acts for healthcare professionals in Burkina Faso. Once finalized, this general nomenclature of...
A policy brief published on health financing in response to COVID-19 in Kyrgyzstan
WHO Regional Office for Europe in collaboration with WHO Country Office in Kyrgyzstan and WHO Barcelona Office for Health Systems Financing published a report titled “Health financing in Kyrgyzstan: obstacles and opportunities in the response to COVID-19” (2021)....
A new report published on aligning health and decentralization reform in Ukraine
As part of Health policy paper series, WHO Regional Office for Europe in collaboration with WHO Country Office in Ukraine published a policy brief titled “Aligning health and decentralization reform in Ukraine” (2021). Considering that Ukrainian decentralization...
Unleashing the Potential of Strategic Purchasing
Strategic purchasing of health services and infrastructure can prove to be very valuable in achieving UHC in Low and Middle Income countries (LMICs) that have to optimize limited resources to provide adequate healthcare to its citizens. The brief explains this by...
Multi-Regional Landscape Study and Analysis of Select West African Countries available
New West Africa regional document available: Recognizing that a healthy population promotes economic development, resilience, and strength, many governments have started pursuing a universal health coverage (UHC) agenda. The international community, national...
Document on developing and implementing health financing strategies available here
Low- and middle-income countries are developing health financing strategies to map out how they will pay for universal health coverage. This brief discusses three activities that are valuable for producing sound strategies: convening multi-sectoral committees to...