Thursday, September 16, 2010

The World Health Statistics 2010

The World Health Statistics 2010 (based on 2009 data) has been released recently.

Country outcomes are listed in tables and includes outcomes of each of the MDG’s.

It covers per country and per region:
Mortality and burden of disease, Cause-specific mortality and morbidity, Selected infectious diseases: number of reported cases, Health service coverage, Risk factors (drinking water, tobacco, LBW, etc), Health workforce, infrastructure and essential medicines, Health expenditure, Health inequities and Demographics.

It shows the following, amongst others, for South Africa:
• Life expectancy has declined from 59 in 1990 to 52 in 2008 for males, and from 68 to 55 for females.
• By 2008, SA is reported as having 8 doctors per 10 000 population, 41 nurses per 10 000 and 3 pharmacists per 10 000.
• As far as the availability of essential medicines are concerned, no data is available for the public sector, but the private sector is reported as having 71% of selected generic medicines available.
• In terms of health expenditure:
o SA spent 8.5% of GDP on health in 2000, and 8.6% of GDP in 2007.
o Government spent 10.9% of its total budget on health in 2000, and 10,8% of its total budget on health in 2007.
o The % of private expenditure has decreased slightly over the same period from 59.5% to 58.6%, of which 93.9% are reported as “out-of-pocket” spend in 2007
o On a per capita basis, SA has increased total health spend from $803 to $1148 at average exchange rate of which $290 and $375 are government per capita spend. (figures in PPP also available)

For the African continent, the following are pertinent:
• “Despite … gains, the coverage of critical interventions such as oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhoea and case management with antibiotics for acute respiratory infections (ARIs) remains inadequate. As a result, diarrhoea and pneumonia still kill almost 3 million children under 5 years old each year, especially in low-income countries.”
• “While there were some improvements in the WHO African Region, less than 50% of TB cases were reported in this region in 2008.”
• “In the WHO African Region (where HIV prevalence among adults was the highest) only 45% of pregnant women in need in low-income and middle-income countries received treatment…”
• “Non-communicable diseases and injuries caused an estimated 33 million deaths in developing countries in 2004 and will account for a growing proportion of total deaths in the future. Tackling risk factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and the harmful use of alcohol (while also dealing with the socioeconomic impact of cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes) will depend not only upon effective healthcare services but also upon actions taken in a variety of policy domains.”

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