The Health Department says it hopes to get an additional funding from the Health Promotions Levy in 2020 to fight non-communicable diseases in South Africa.
In April 2018, the Health Promotions Levy, which is commonly known as Sugar Tax, was introduced in South Africa.
It was aimed at regulating and reducing the amount of sugar consumed by citizens.
As a result, an amount of R50 million was allocated to dealing with non-communicable diseases which include high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and cardio-vascular diseases among others.
Lynn Moeng, from the National Health Department. says this levy started in 2018.
“This levy started last year and the government didn’t know how much they were going to get out of it. Last year, we got an amount of about R50 million which was used for NCD for cancers because last year’s priority was cancer. This year, we got a bit less but we were told for next year it is going to be three times as much. We are putting up a plan on what are the priorities, where we think this money could best be used,” says Moeng.
