The programme of the Health sector has as its objective to improve the state of health of the population, of all Angolan citizens without discrimination, based on the principle of equity.
Having in view this general objective, the programme of the Health sector has the following strategic components or specific objectives:
- To increase and improve the access to primary health care, specially maternal-infant health care;
- To improve the quality of existing services by putting emphasis on training, supervision and availability of essential medicines, as well as reinforcing the diagnosis of most common diseases, specially malaria, tuberculosis and diseases that can be prevented by vaccination.
- To control the spread of IST/HIV/AIDS, and
- Reinforce in the provinces and municipalities the levels of management and planning.
The programme aims at improving the access to basic services by poor populations and the most vulnerable groups who live in areas which recently became accessible, in areas of re-settlement and in areas most affected by the war. Based on these principles, the interventions must give priority, during a period of the implementation of the programme (2003 to 2005), to the following provinces: Bié, Huambo, Huíla, Kuando Kubango, Kwanza Norte, Kwanza Sul, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Malange, Moxico, Uige and Zaire.
The implementation of the priority phase of the programme is highly based on the principles of descentralization and participation, thus, efforts will be made to consolidate the descentralization, developments of norms and protocols and guaranteeing adequate training of the provincial and municipal health teams. In particular, it will be taken appropriate measures to reinforce provincial and municipal participation in the process of decision-making on investments to the Health sector, in order to allow a progressive increase in the capacity, and participation of the communities in the solutions of health problems and guarantee sustainability.
In this sector, special attention should be paid to the preventive measures against HIV/AIDS epidemy, whose central objectives of the Government’s programme are:
- To strengthen the national capacity to respond to the challenge to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemy;
- To prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, by reinforcing preventive measures; and
- To attenuate the socio-economic impact of HIV/AIDS on individuals, families and communities.
To achieve these objectives, the Government has provide some guide-lines. It will be fundamental to guarantee the integration of the strategies to combat HIV/AIDS with other sub-sectorial strategies pertaining SCP (Strategy to Combat Poverty), due to the fact that there as a direct relation between populations living in a situation of poverty and their vulnerability regarding the transmission of the epidemy. The questions of gender and the lack of power by women, inherent to the poverty situation, are determinant factors in spreading the epidemy, and must be addressed in a transversal way in the strategy to combat HIV/AIDS.
To tackle vigorously the epidemy, we need to address the problem multi-sectorially, involving all partners and leading to the promotion of concomitant actions. The different actors, especially the sectorial ministries, being members of CNLS – National Committee against Aids must contribute to prevent HIV/AIDS and reduce its impact on the population. To that aim, they shall include intervention actions in view to prevent and mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS in their strategies and plans. The cooperation partners and the civil society in general must intervene and collaborate with Government to implementation the programme in various areas
In the strategy to combat HIV/AIDS priority will be given to the groups identified as being the most vulnerable to the infection and social impact. The main target-groups for intervention are the juvenile population, specially girls, adults who are very active, including truck-drivers and soldiers, people who are infected with HIV/AIDS and their relatives and orphans of AIDS.
