Momase cholera budget slashed

MOROBE health officials attending the cholera task force meeting yesterday expressed disappointment at the recent release of funds to fight cholera in the province.
During the second task force meeting since its reactivation, the officials said they had initially requested a total of K11 million, however, the National Executive Council had only approved K3 million.
The K3 million was however, divided and distributed by the national task force to the three affected provinces, Morobe, Madang and Sepik.
Officials said this would mean that the six programmes involved in addressing cholera would have to priorities their activities this year.
Meeting chairman Dr Likei Theo said the overall priority was to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in the affected areas of the province.
Dr Theo said the prevention phase–of installing reliable water systems and pit latrines – had to be addressed this year as very little was accomplished last year due to lack of funding.
Angau Memorial Hospital acting CEO Dr Songli Soctine said districts in the province should assist the provincial government by allocating some of their district funds to address cholera in their districts.
Meanwhile, affected districts reporting cases to date are Huon Gulf, Markham, Nawaeb and Lae.