My areas of keen interest in Uganda’s health sector performance report of 2021-22.

Health financing: 3.3 trillion shillings in 2021-2022 from 2.7 trillion shillings in 2020-2021.

Photo credit: Your Commonwealth

Health facility performance: Registered community health-workers are 38,395 of which 18,620 are males and 15,458 are females.

Photo credit: Centre for Health Journalism

Viral Load suppression: For the People Living With HIV/AIDS on Anti-Retroviral Drugs, it is at 96% achieving the 95% target.

However, Anti-Retroviral Treatment retention at 12 months was 83% in financial year 2021-2022 below the target of 95%.

Photo credit: UNICEF Uganda

Reduced fertility and dependence rate: There is also a growing diversity and greater equality between long acting and reversable contraceptives and short-term methods, with implants and injectables dominating as below:

1. Injections – 39%
2. Implants – 29%
3. Male condom – 9%
4. Pills – 6%
5. Intra Uterine Devices – 5%
6. Female sterilization – 5%
7. Other modern methods – 4%
8. Standard days method – 3%
9. Male sterilization – 0%
10. Lactational Amenorrhea Method – 0%

Photo credit: The Independent Uganda

Conditions that led to health facility admissions: Malaria remained the commonest cause of admissions of all ages accounting for 26.2% (834,329 out of 3,188,471).

Abortions in financial year 2020-2021 accounted for 59,447 admissions and 58,657 admissions in financial year 2021-2022.

Acute diarrhoea in financial year 2020-2021 accounted for 56,495 admissions and 57,496 admissions in financial year 2021-2022.

Photo credit: Uganda National Institute of Public Health

Mental health conditions: These were recorded 455,153 times of 44,577,830 of all Out-Patient Department attendances.

1. Epilepsy remains the most common mental health condition constituting 55.4% of attendances.
2. Bipolar disorder comes in second at 9.7%
3. Anxiety disorders come in third at 8.8%
4. The number of Out-Patient Department attendances due to substance use disorders increased by 156% from 2,399 cases reported in 2019-2020 to 6,155 cases in 2021-2022.
5. Alcohol Use Disorder reduced by 52.4% from 22,000 cases in 2019-2020 to 10,468 cases in 2021-2022.
6. Out-Patient Department attendances due to mental health conditions was highest among females 20 years above compared to other population group.
7. Alcohol use disorder and substance (drug) use disorders are highest among males in both the 5-19 and 20+ age group brackets.

Photo credit: the United Nations

All the information here was retrieved from a book published by the Ministry of Health Uganda, with financial support from UNICEF and USAID through the Uganda Health System Strengthening (UHSS) Activity.