Civil society reaction to State of the Nation Address

(Kampala) Today June 6, 2013 a coalition of civil society organizations fighting for realization of the right to health in Uganda issued the following statement in reaction to President Museveni's State of the Nation Address:

"Uganda today is lagging behind the region and much of the continent in addressing crucial health priorities, from rising HIV incidence, to persistently high rates of maternal death, to preventable deaths from malaria and vaccine preventable illnesses. This is unacceptable.

Uganda cannot develop economically as a country without tackling those crises. Our development suffers when Ugandans cannot gain access to essential health services.

Ironically, scientific advances show that right now Uganda could benefit enormously from accelerated investments in the fight against these preventable killers--for example, by aggressively scaling up access to HIV treatment along with other high impact interventions, Uganda could prevent more than 100,000 deaths and slash HIV incidence by up to 60%. By equipping Health Centre IVs and IIIs with the equipment and personnel needed to provide emergency obstetric care, thousands of mothers' and babies lives could be saved.

But today the President gave only superficial mention to these issues in the

For more information, contact:

Samuel Senfuka, White Ribbon Alliance Uganda: 0704920043, [email][email protected]
Dennis Odwe, AGHA Uganda: 0772637740, [email][email protected]
Moses Mulumba, CEHURD (Centre