Progress made to lay foundation in health

 HEALTH secretary Pascoe Kase says much progress has been made in laying the foundation to improve the health system and the health of the people.

Kase said in 2014 and 2015, the Health Department responded urgently to immediate public health concerns such as the measles outbreak which started in 2013 and spread to the 22 provinces.

He said it was now under control. 

“More than 2.6 million doses of measles vaccine were supplied to the provinces during the outbreak,” Kase said.

He said according to reports, at least 750,000 people received the measles vaccine.

Kase said a nationwide tuberculosis (TB) awareness campaign was being led by the Prime Minister. 

It was supported by an emergency drug-resistant TB response with Western, Gulf and the National Capital District, plus the national scale-up of the TB DOTS programme.

He said the ministerial taskforce on TB had been meeting and K8 million allocated for TB work.

“The Government is fully funding the anti-retroviral treatments for 13,800 patients and is working with partners, civil society and churches to provide support,” he said.  

Kase said malaria treatment had seen impressive results through the support of Global Funds.

He said it was important to sustain those gains as the Health Department did not want to see lives lost.

“We have taken a policy shift to eliminate malaria in Papua New Guinea with support from Australia and China,” he said.