Child mortality under five said declines
Leulseged Worku
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD
7 April 2012
Reprinted with permission
ADDIS ABABA- Officially launching the third Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) Thursday, the Central Statistical Agency said child death rate under five has dramatically declined over the last ten or so years. Currently, about one in 11 children die before reaching the age of five in Ethiopia.
According to the report, by the year 2000, child mortality under five was 166 per 1,000 live births. However, this figure has further declined to 123 and 88 by the year 2005 and 2011respectively.
The report further indicated that under-nutrition is also declining. By the year 2000, 58 per cent of children under the age of five were stunted. This figure has also declined into 44 percent. So has the proportion of children underweight. Children who are too thin for their age has declined from 41 per cent in 2000 to 29 percent in 2011, according to the survey.
On the occasion, Health State Minister, Kesete Berhane said “In 1990, an estimated 20 per cent of children under the age of five would not reach their fifth birthday. However, today, according to the 2011 survey, the figure has been slashed by more than half. This means, tens of thousands less children die each year, an impressive achievement indeed.”
With regard to Family planning, the 2011 EDHS reveals that using modern methods of family planning has doubled among married women since 2005.
Clearly, he said, more than one-quarter (27 per cent) of currently married woman are using a modern method of family planning, nearly two times higher than that of 2005. Fertility has also declined from an average 5.4 [children] per woman in 2005 to its current level 4.8 children per woman. About 34 per cent of pregnant women under the age category of 15-49 received antenatal care from a skilled birth attendant compared to 28 per cent in 2005.
According to CSA, deliveries at health facilities are still low. More than six in ten women believed that delivery in the health facilities is not necessary. Nevertheless, it has now slightly increased since 2005.
As learnt from the study, over half of employed women, are now in a position to make decisions on financial issues they have generated jointly with their husbands and [68] and [75] per cent of women and men respectively said that the decision on how to spend husband's cash earnings is made jointly between the husband and wife.
It is also cited that literacy among men and women has shown improvements over the last five years; currently 38 per cent of women between the age of 15-49 and 65 per cent of men between the age of 15-59 are literate across the nation.
This remarkable progress is achieved by making high impact interventions accessible to the majority of the people through family and community based care, population outreach services and clinical care.
What is more, the accelerated construction and expansion of primary health care facilities and the roll out of the Health Extension Programme have greatly increased access to and delivery of these important interventions. According to Kesete-Birhan.
He also said, the nation has registered a remarkable increase in terms of using contraceptive. Currently, 29 per cent of married women are using family planning, and the majority uses modern methods.
As to Kesete-Birhan, though progress has been made in aforementioned areas, the country needs to work aggressively to reduce maternal mortality.
Samia Zekaria Central Statistical Agency Director General and 2011 EDHS Project coordinator said, the 2011 EDHS have a significant role in providing up-to-date information for planning, policy formulation, monitoring and evaluation of population and health programs in the country.
She further said:, “The survey was intentionally planned to be conducted in alignment with the MDG reporting periods so that the data could be used to assess and measure the achievements of Millennium Development Goals and GTP.”
The 2011 DHS in conjunction with statical information obtained from Welfare Monitoring Survey, which is planned to be launched in the coming few weeks and the Household consumption Expenditure Survey have provided critical information for monitoring and evaluating the MDG and GTP, said Samia.
The 2011 EDHS aims at providing people with current and reliable data on fertility, family planing, infant and child mortality, adult and maternal mortality, children nutritional status, use of maternal and child health services, women empowerment, knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and prevalence of HIV/AIDS and anemia. In due course of conducting the survey [16,515] households were covered. Some 307 field workers were trained and deployed to collect data from over [30,000] respondents ([16,515] women and [14,110] men).
Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are nationally-representative household surveys that provide data for a wide range of monitoring and impact evaluation indicators in the areas of population, health, and nutrition.
