By Andrew Kaumba
THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH HAS NO DATA ON MEDICAL ERRORS. HOW CAN YOU FIX WHAT YOU DO NOT MEASURE?
Medical errors are a leading cause of death worldwide. Zambia has scanty to no data on patient safety incidents. No national survey. No published indicators. This is not an attack. This is a question they cannot answer.
Let me start with a simple question.
How many patients died from medical errors in Zambia last year?
No one knows. Not the Ministry of Health. Not the hospitals. Not the regulators.
Because Zambia has scanty to no data on patient safety incidents.
A 2019 University of Zambia dissertation on patient safety incident reporting found that “nearly all published studies on patient safety incident reporting to date have been from developed countries, with scanty to no reports from developing or transitional economies” .
The researcher confirmed that he “never came across any study which has been conducted and published on this topic in Zambia” .
A Zambian researcher, looking for published data on patient safety incidents in Zambia, found none.
We are flying blind.
Here is the most damning evidence.
Between 1997 and 2018, Zambia reported only 2 medication errors to the WHO global database (VigiBase) .
Two errors. In 28 years.
Not because errors do not happen. Because no one is reporting them.
For comparison, South Africa reported 1,624 medication errors in the same period .
This is not a Zambia problem. This is a reporting problem. And the Ministry of Health knows it.
The evidence from Zambia is alarming.
A 2025 study published in Discover Health Systems analyzed Maternal Death Surveillance and Response data from the Ministry of Health between 2018 and 2022. The findings are staggering .
83.4 percent of maternal death certificates in Zambia had errors in the immediate cause of death .
62.5 percent had errors in the underlying cause of death .
Eight out of ten death certificates for mothers who died in childbirth were wrong. This is the Ministry’s own data.
If we cannot correctly record why a mother died, how can we prevent the next one from dying?
The problem is worse in some provinces.
The same study found that Northern and Luapula Provinces had higher odds of errors compared with other provinces .
The researchers concluded that there is an urgent need to “strengthen training of medical staff responsible for medical certification of maternal causes of death to adhere to the WHO guidelines” .
But does the Ministry have data on how many staff have been trained? No national survey. No published indicator. No public data.
Underreporting of medication errors is a national crisis:
The Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority (ZAMRA) oversees the monitoring and reporting of adverse drug reactions. The country has established a National Pharmacovigilance Centre to coordinate these activities .
A 2025 AUDA-NEPAD workshop report, hosted by ZAMRA, identified key challenges including “gaps in real-world evidence,” “underreporting of adverse events despite significant investments,” “fragmented, siloed legacy systems,” and “resource constraints in monitoring medicines and vaccines” .
If healthcare workers do not report errors, the Ministry cannot track them. If the Ministry cannot track them, they cannot prevent them.
The WHO says medical errors are a leading cause of death worldwide:
The World Health Organization states that “patient harm due to unsafe care is a large and growing global public health challenge and is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide” .
Zambia does not have good data. That is the problem. We do not know if our numbers are better or worse. We have not measured.
To give an example of the scale of missing data: the Ministry of Health itself stated in 2025 that it lacks “specific data on the prevalence of mental health issues or disorders, as no survey has been conducted or indicators established to track the matter” .
If we are not tracking the mental health of the people who care for us, what else are we not tracking?
To the Ministry of Health. To the critics. To anyone who says I am wrong:
Produce the data.
Show us the national survey on patient safety incidents. Show us the indicators you have established to track medical errors. Show us the medication error reports submitted to WHO beyond the two on record.
If the data exists, publish it. If it does not exist, admit it. And then explain why.
You cannot fix what you do not measure. And you cannot measure what you do not report.
The country is watching. The patients are waiting. The truth is not an attack. It is an invitation. Show us the data.
What you can do:
The system will not change because it is kind. It will change because you force it to.
Ask the Ministry: When will you conduct a national survey on patient safety incidents? When will you publish the data?
Ask your hospital: What is your rate of medication errors? What are you doing to reduce them?
Ask your doctor: What are the specific risks for me, and what are you doing to prevent them?
I am not writing this to attack. I am writing this to demand answers.
Zambia has scanty to no data on medical errors. The evidence shows high error rates on maternal death certificates. The WHO says medical errors are a leading cause of death.
These are not opinions. These are facts.
Now you know.
Dr Kaumba for Minister of Health. This is a patriot’s patriot. Now I know what they don’t want us to know. I have always suspected this but I had no way of verifying it. Will the Zambia Medical Association are whatever its new name bother to comment? I doubt it.