Tanzania faces litmus test on universal health cover
A community health worker administers an oral polio vaccine during a door-to-door immunisation campaign in Mbezi Makabe, Dar es Salaam, on May 21, 2022.
Tanzania’s new revised universal health coverage scheme launched this week, is meant to protect vulnerable groups from scourges of expensive care. But the programme is also about lessons from the past where previous bids collapsed under weak cost controls and administrative hurdles.
The programme, dubbed Bima ya Afya kwa Wote (health insurance for all), became operational on January 26. It makes enrolment mandatory for all citizens and households.
