Botswana has declared a public health emergency as it faces a shortage of essential medicines and medical equipment.
President Duma Boko made the announcement in a televised address on Monday, setting out a multimillion-pound plan to rectify the supply chain involving military oversight.
Managing the shortages would be "highly price sensitive due to our limited coffers", he told the nation.
The country's economy has been hit by a downturn in the international diamond market, as it is one of the world's leading diamond producers. This strain, further fuelled by US aid cuts, has seen most of the 2.5m Botswanans facing unemployment and high levels of poverty, according to media reports.
"The work shall remain nonstop until the entire value chain of procurement has been fixed" Boko said in his address, announcing that the finance ministry had approved 250 million pula (£13.8m) in emergency funding.
