Motsoaledi hails vaccines and bewails lack of interest in department’s successes
THE government’s recent introduction of two new childhood vaccines has slashed the number of cases of life-threatening pneumonia and rotavirus, yet these successes have been barely acknowledged, says Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi.Delivering his budget speech to Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Motsoaledi said there had been a 70% decline in potentially deadly pneumonia in children under the age of five, and a 66% decline in children under the age of two admitted to hospital with rotavirus-caused diarrhoea.The minister lamented the media and politicians’ lack of interest in his department’s programmes for preventing diseases, complaining that curing disease was regarded as a nobler scientific feat than preventing illness. The public discourse placed too much attention on events in hospitals and clinics, he said. "Any one negative event that takes place there is almost immediately regarded as the collapse of the health system," he said.The government had budgeted R450m a year for pneum...
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