Public health in Zambia — hospitals and clinics, disease and outbreaks, medicines, and the Ministry of Health.
Zambia's malaria cases fell to an estimated 9.5 million in 2024 from 11.5 million in 2023, with deaths down 40%, according to Ministry of Health data — even as the country battles a separate cholera outbreak.
The World Health Organization reported 906 suspected Ebola cases and 223 suspected deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an escalation of the Bundibugyo outbreak now pressing on Zambia's northern border and Copperbelt cross-border trade.
The World Health Organization declared the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in DRC and Uganda a global health emergency on 17 May, with 80 deaths reported and no licensed vaccine for the strain. Zambia is now screening arrivals at Kasumbalesa, Kashiba, Mokambo, Jimbe and Chembe — the five border posts that handle most road traffic with the DRC, including the copper and cobalt that move down the North-South corridor.
Zambia has activated its Ebola response centres as the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo worsens, with the death toll in eastern Congo rising and the World Health Organization warning the virus may be spreading faster than first thought. Zambia does not share a border with the affected Ituri region, but the cross-border traffic through the copper corridor makes preparedness, not panic, the correct posture. Here is what activation means and why it matters.
Health is Kwacha News' coverage of public health in Zambia — the hospitals and clinics that deliver care, the disease burden the country carries, the medicines and money that reach the system, and the Ministry of Health and the institutions around it. The section follows outbreaks and the response to them — cholera, malaria, measles and the rest — alongside the slower stories of HIV and tuberculosis, maternal and child health, nutrition, mental health, and the financing that decides whether a clinic has drugs on the shelf. The reporting reads health as both a human story and a system: what the data shows, where the gaps are, and how decisions in Lusaka reach a patient in a district hospital.
Politics
Zambian government, policy and governance — the decisions that set the rules for everything else.
Local
Zambia close to home — the provinces, cities and councils, local government, service delivery and the civic stories that shape daily life.
Africa
Southern Africa and the continent — regional trade, economies and the AfCFTA story.
