Health mdg: Good job, more needs to be done: Report
The preliminary report of Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2011, released on Tuesday have shown that issues such as fertility, immunisation have seen significant improvement as compared to that in the previous years. However, data suggest that issues such as contraceptive use and infant-child mortality need effective health interventions.
The report shows that fertility rate decreased drastically from 5.1 percent in 1984-86 to 2.6 in 2008-11. Currently, one in two married women from age 15-49 is using some method or the other of contraception. Modern contraceptives use rate is the highest in the Terai (45 percent). There has been a 20 percent increase in the use of modern contraception methods in the Mountain zone in the last five years, with male sterilisation (17 percent) the most popular method. The trend of using contraceptives in 2011 is 43.2 percent—a one percent decrease from 2006.
In cases of maternal health, the number of women consulting either doctors, nurses or midwives during their pregnancy period has increased significantly. According to 2011 NDHS, 58 percent of women went for the consultation. However, antenatal care is lower in the Mountain (52 percent) and Hill (53 percent) zones compared with the Terai zone (63 percent).
Though antenatal care received by women is much higher than in the past, only 36 percent of babies were delivered by doctors or nurses or midwives. Only 28 percent of the births occurred at health institutions. With this report, it is clear that Nepal has a long way to go to meet the MDG target of 60 percent births attended by skilled personnel. The immunisation coverage too increased to 87 percent in 2010 from 83 percent in 2006.
The comparison of infant and child mortality data from the four past Nepal DHS surveys indicates that while mortality has been declining, the pace is slow. For instance, there were 79 per 1,000 live births during 1991-95, 64 per 1,000 live births during 1996-2000, 46 per 1,000 live births during 2001-05 and 46 per 1,000 live births during 2006-10.
This is the fourth comprehensive national level population and health survey conducted in Nepal.
Posted on: 2011-08-24 08:57
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