The Uganda minister of state for local government Perez Ahabwe while presenting the proposal for the creation of new counties to Uganda Parliament on Wednesday says the new counties will help improve representation and ease administration of the areas.

Uganda Parliament

The new counties are Dodoth West County in Kaabong district, Bunyole West County in Butaleja district, Agule County in Pallisa district, Bukooli Islands County in Namayingo district and Ikiki-iki County in Budaka district.

The newly created counties mostly curved out from newly created districts will add five new Members of parliament in the already congested Uganda Parliament.

Experts believe that the new counties will increase administration costs and strain Uganda budget which is already strained with high administration costs.

Uganda already has over 90 districts which comes with huge administration costs because it automatically creates new offices like the Chief Administrative office, District chairperson and Woman MP among others.

Solomon Akugizibwe, Ultimate Media

The post Uganda parliament creates five new counties first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

The Uganda Parliamentary Committee on Social Services has directed all Uganda districts to purchase at least 70% of their drugs from the government controlled National Medical Stores (NMS) as opposed to buying them from private drug companies.

Mulago Hospital building

The Member of Parliament for Bunya West, also a member of the committee Aggrey Henry Bagiire told journalists at Uganda Parliament today (29^th June 2010) that the policy has been to purchase at least 30% of the drugs from NMS by Uganda district governments.

Bagiire says the policy will help reduce the expiry of government drugs and increase availability of drugs in government hospitals and health centers.

In 2009 Uganda National Referral Hospital of Mulago faced an acute shortage of drugs yet there were drugs in NMS that could have been procured for the hospital. He says that if the new policy was in place, the hospital would not have had the drug shortage.

The Bunya West MP says that during the 2009/10 Uganda National budget, out of the 11 billion Uganda Shillings meant for drugs in Mulago Hospital, only 2 billion shillings was spent buying drugs from NMS.

Uganda continues to face shortage of drugs in various government owned hospitals and health centers partly due to corruption.

Zacharia Tiberindwa, Ultimate Media

The post Uganda districts directed to purchase 70% of drugs from NMS first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Mosquito which spreads Malaria disease

The Uganda Minister of State for Primary Heath, James Kakooza has indicated that malaria prevalence rates will reduce by 5 percent before the end of 2015.

Currently, the prevalence of malaria in Uganda stands at more than 25 percent and remains the leading killer mostly affecting children and pregnant mothers according to statistics from the Ministry of Health.

Kakooza told Ultimate Media that the government has put in place various interventions, like giving free mosquito nets to Ugandans that cannot afford and spraying DDT to reduce the prevalence rates by 2015.

The minister says the Ministry of Health pilot scheme to spray DDT in the districts of Kanungu, Kumi and the Acholi region has already significantly reduced the malaria prevalence rates by about 5 percent.

Kakooza says with such a success story Ugandan’s should not think the task is impossible.

By Zacharia Tiberindwa

Ultimate Media

The post Uganda Health Minister says Malaria prevalence to reduce by 2015 first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.