Ensuring successful implementation of malaria policy in Uganda

Abstract

In Uganda, healthcare services were made available to everyone in 2001, through the abolition of direct user fees for public healthcare services. This eliminated the financial barriers to access to healthcare that had been faced by Ugandan citizens, and was a step towards the control and elimination of the burden of disease. Despite this and the scale-up of other intervention programmes, the prevalence of malaria remains high; it is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in Uganda. In 2019, the number of reported malaria cases was over 1.4 million, primarily in children under the age of five years. Uganda ranks in the third position in the number of malaria infections in Sub-Saharan Africa by country, and it has the highest number of reported malaria transmissions in the world. Moreover, reports have indicated that severe anaemia due to malaria remains a public health problem in the country.