Follow up to US Health Assessment - September, 2005

In 2005, Dr. Woodrow Myers, a founding member of the Mozambique Healthcare Consortium and member of the US Health Assessment Delegation to Mozambique in 1988, returned to the country to re-assess the healthcare landscape since his visit seventeen years prior.  In a report to the US Ambassador to Mozambique, he outlined his findings regarding progress in the Mozambican health sector as well as his perspective on the health challenges that continued to face the country.

Dr. Myers noted that there had been a significant increase in the complexity of Mozambican society, especially within the healthcare sector. Not only was there an expanded presence of the Ministry of Health, as evidenced by its increase in size and its community outreach, there was an emerging private sector in health care as well. He saw a number of new private sector clinics had been opened.  Dr. Myers also noted that there was an increase in awareness of the population of specific health care services, especially in urban areas. While malaria and war-related trauma were the most pressing healthcare issues observed in 1988, HIV/AIDS was the source of much of the country's disease burden in 2005, overwhelming all public sector healthcare facilities at the time.