Countries around the world are making progress in improving access to healthcare for their citizens, and Rwanda has managed to cover 90 percent of citizens, the World Health Assembly hears.

Over 90 percent of Rwandans are covered by health insurance, President Paul Kagame told the World Health Assembly (WHA) which opened yesterday.

“Two-thirds of the costs are covered by contributions from beneficiaries, with government subsidising the remaining one-third,” Kagame told the world’s health leaders while delivering the assembly’s keynote address.

Universal health coverage (UHC) – ensuring that everyone has access to healthcare – is a key theme of the WHA, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has committed to ensuring that an additional one billion people get health coverage by 2023.

“Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, and Senegal all offer a subsidy to insurance,” said Kagame. “Ethiopia is a pioneer in the use of Community Health Workers as the frontline of primary healthcare, and Ghana is also deploying them with great success.”……more