The Social Enterprise Development-Ghana, a non-governmental organisation has called on Government to increase funding for epidemic preparedness and response through the annual National budget. According to them, it is time the country eschew the “wait till it happens ” attitude by annually budgeting and releasing funds to eliminate the impact of epidemics on individuals.
A desk study undertaken by SEND Ghana revealed that Ghana regularly experiences outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, influenza, meningitis and malaria.
Epidemics that lead to morbidity and mortality affects the livelihoods of individuals and households, it also collapses businesses and stalls the growth of economics.
It stated that the fatalities and unpredictable disease outbreaks often expose vulnerabilities in the health sector in particular and the economy as a whole.
According to the organisation, Ghana has developed a costed national action plan for health security aimed at adequately preparing and effectively responding to epidemics. However, the implementation of the plan is challenged by limited or no funding devoted to it.
The organisation is embarking on a 10 monthly campaign dubbed “EPIDEMICS PREPAREDNESS FINANCING ADVOCACY “.
The campaign is aimed at drawing the attention of the Government to the necessity of the plan and to influence decisions for annual budget funding allocation with evidence.
Epidemics of high magnitudes such as COVID-19 affected economic performance and stalled growth by reducing overall projected gross domestic product(GDP) from 6.8 per cent to less than one per cent, Hence the need to allocate funding towards epidemic preparedness, it stated.
SEND GHANA also disclosed that, the impact of epidemics on the health sector is huge, health workers are the first to suffer morbidity, stigmatisation and mortality.
Disease epidemics have the potentials of derailing Ghana’s growth and increasing poverty, therefore efforts must be made to prevent its occurrence or impact.
The organisation further stated that the Government can achieve its aim of preventing by increasing funding for epidemics preparedness and response through the annual National budget, they said, can be achieved by increasing the health sector annual budgetary allocations to meet international benchmarks.
By: Angela Amuzu
