The government stepped in with additional funding allocations for national public health programs after they received a reduced budget for 2024. The Ministry of Health initially set a budget 30% lower than last year.
The vaccination program received a budget cut by more than 50% in 2024 – Photo Archive
Specifically, the Ministry of Health established a budget of 860 million lei for the 13 national public health programs, over 30% less than the 2023 budget.
Only now have the authorities recognized that the amount is not enough, so the government has allocated additional funds worth 200 million lei to finance national public health programs.
“I am referring here in particular to the purchase of vaccines, within the national vaccination program, for the treatment of HIV-AIDS infected patients and also for the transfusion security part. The budget allocated for all these activities was not enough and it is very good that the Government allocated this amount, which makes these programs functional”, stated the Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, at the end of the Executive meeting, according to 360medical.ro.
In total, the government allocated an additional 1.9 billion lei to the budget of the Ministry of Health. From this amount, 125 million lei will be allocated to the construction of the major burn centers in Târgu Mureș, Timișoara and Bucharest. At the same time, 210 million lei were allocated for the priority actions of the Ministry of Health, such as intensive care, myocardial infarction, stroke, trauma, neonatology and post-stroke recovery.
Drastically reduced budget for national public health programs
From the total budget of 860 million lei for 2024, the largest allocation was for the national program for the prevention, surveillance and control of HIV/AIDS infection, with 245.8 million lei (28.6% of the total budget). The amount has been halved compared to 2023.
The national vaccination program received 178.1 million lei (20.7% of the total budget), a decrease of 53.6% compared to the previous year. Funding for the national program for surveillance and control of priority communicable diseases was drastically reduced from 54.3 million lei to 7.09 million lei.
In addition, the national tuberculosis prevention, surveillance and control program received only 11.7 million lei in the budget for 2024, a reduction of almost three times compared to the 30.6 million lei allocated in 2023. This in the conditions of which we are in first place in the EU in the number of cases of TB, a contagious disease with a high degree of mortality. Last year alone, 9,572 cases were registered, of which over 400 were among children.
