Health in Namibia

[3] In the financial year 2020, Government and private health expenditure combined accounted for 8.9% of the country's Gross Domestic Product,[4] compared to the world average of the 10% of GDP in 2018.

[7] In regards to the right to health amongst the adult population, the country achieves only 66.2% of what is expected based on the nation's level of income.

Certain services like dialysis and organ transplantations are only available from private medical centres, putting them out of reach for the majority of Namibia's citizens.

The situation got wide coverage in 2010 when Jackson Kaujeua, Namibian singer and liberation hero, died from renal failure[10] after not being able to afford private medical care, and thus not being put on dialysis.

This number is significantly larger than in the rest of Africa[13] and slightly exceeds the minimum density recommended by the World Health Organization.

[8] The total numbers do not reflect that the private health care facilities are luxuriously staffed while there is a shortage in the public sector.

However it is still too high according to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3) made by the United Nations (UN), which declares that the global amount of U5IM should not exceed 25/1000 births by 2030.

[19] They need to make specific lifestyle adaptations because of the extreme weather conditions with about 300 days of sunshine annually.

Alcohol consumption is increasing[update] particularly in the north of the country (the four regions of Ohangwena, Omusati, Oshana, and Oshikoto).

Government shut down air travel to and from Qatar, Ethiopia and Germany on the same day, closed all public and private schools, and prohibited large gatherings.

15.000 new cases of HIV each year, and 10.000 yearly deaths due to AIDS – and more than 30% of babies born to HIV-positive mothers were infected.Among numerous other initiatives the Namibian government began a cooperation with U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) which have shown significant improvements in areas with high rates of HIV/AIDS.

In the last decade, the Namibian government has taken leadership and shown commitment in the national fight against HIV/AIDS, which is probably why Namibia stands to be one of the few countries in Sub Saharan Africa having a realistic chance of achieving the UNAIDS targets for HIV epidemic control by 2020.

There is a small group of approximately 60 leprosy sufferers in the Kavango and Caprivi Region, most of them concentrated at Mashare, east of Rundu.

Until the early 1980s this settlement contained a leprosarium of considerable size for thousands of patients from South-West Africa and its neighbours Angola and Botswana.

A hotspot of the disease is the coastal town of Walvis Bay where cold weather aids TB infections.