A new report by the World Health Organisation shows that Africa has registered an increase in life expectancy by almost 10 years over the past 15 years.

The report titled; ‘World Health Statistics: Monitoring Health for the SDGs’ shows that dramatic gains in life expectancy between 2000 and 2015 were globally driven by improvements in child survival, progress in malaria control and expanded access to antiretroviral for treatment against HIV.

Dr Magret Chan, the Director General of the World Health Organization said that while significant strides in reducing premature deaths from treatable diseases were made, there is still more work to do.

"The gains have been uneven and supporting countries to move towards universal health coverage based on strong primary care is the best thing we can do to make sure no-one is left behind,” said Dr Chan.

According to the report, Global life expectancy for children born in 2015 stood at 71.4 years (73.8 years for females and 69.1 years for males), but an individual child’s outlook depends on where he or she is born.

With an average lifespan of 86.8 years, women in Japan tend to live longer although Switzerland enjoys the longest average survival for men, at 81.3 years. Sadly, people of Sierra Leone have the world’s lowest life expectancy for both sexes: 50.8 years for women and 49.3 years for men.

Globally Healthy life expectancy, a measure of the number of years of good health that a newborn in 2015 can expect, stands at 63.1 years globally (64.6 years for females and 61.5 years for males).

Rwanda’s case

Rwanda’s Life expectancy improved over the last 10 years from 51 to 64.5 years for both sexes (62.5 for males and 66.2 for females), according to the most recent census survey. The National Institute of Statistics, NISR also projected a rise of 65.6 last year.

Venant Habarugira, the acting Director of Census Unit at NISR, said  the dramatic decline in all types of mortality reflects the direct impact of the vigorous and multidimensional interventions implemented by the government and various stakeholders over the past decade to fight leading causes of death.

"They include investments in fighting malaria, acute respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, diarrhea, malnutrition, tuberculosis, childhood diseases as well as improvement in child and maternal health,” said Habarugira.

The recent Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS-V), shows that from 2005, maternal health indicators improved with antenatal healthcare provided by skilled health workers increasing from 94 per cent in 2005 to 99 percent in 2014-15.

"Skilled assistance during delivery increased from 39 percent in 2005 to 91 per cent in 2014-15 while facility-based deliveries have greatly increased from 28 per cent to 91 per cent in 2014-15,” he added.

As a result of improvement in maternal and child health, there was a decline in childhood and maternal mortality. Infant mortality declined from 86 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2005 to 32 in 2014-15 with under-5 mortality plummeting from 152 to 50 deaths per 1,000 live births. The maternal Mortality Ratio also plunged from 476 to 210 maternal deaths per 100, 000 Live births.

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