Botswana’s President Duma Boko declared a public health emergency because of a shortage of essential medicines and medical equipment.
The economy in the world’s top diamond producer by value has been hit by a downturn in the precious stone’s international market, a strain exacerbated by the impact of the US cutting aid that supported the country’s health sector — Washington funded a third of Botswana’s HIV response, according to UNAIDS.
Boko, in a televised address, announced $18.5 million of emergency health funding and said the military would oversee a distribution drive to repair medical supply chains in the country of 2.5 million people. The announcement follows a warning by the health ministry this month that it faced a shortage of medical supplies and owed around $75 million to private health facilities and suppliers.
Botswana relies on diamond sales for around 80% of foreign exchange earnings and has a decades-long diamond mining arrangement with De Beers. But global diamond sales have been hit by oversupply and poor demand, partly tied to rising sales of lab-grown gems. The Financial Times on Wednesday reported that Botswana has hired French investment bank Lazard and Swiss lender CBH Bank to be co-advisers on plans to acquire De Beers.