KAMPALA– The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) recently released the Uganda Demographic Health Survey (UDHS) report for the year 2022 providing data for monitoring the population and Health situation in Uganda.
The report which was launched last week by Hon. Amos Lugolobi, the state Minister for Finance in charge of Planning, on the trends of in Adult mortality revealed that 97 out of 1,000 women aged 15 are expected to die before 50 years of age compared to men whose expectation is 150 per 1,000 men.
“The probability of dying between ages 15 and 50 has consistently declined over the period of 2006 t0 2022, from 295 per 1,000 women and 352 per 1,000 men to 97 per 1,000 women and 150 per 1,000 men respectively.” Stated the report
Interms of Maternal Mortality, its estimated that 189 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births i.e for every 1,000 births , an average of about 1.9 woman die during pregnancy, child birth or with 42 days of the end of a pregnancy from causes other than accident or violence.
Child health, eight percent of Children under 5 years had symptoms of acute respiratory infection in the 2 weeks before the survey and among them treatment or advice was sought for 84 percent. Nineteen percent of children under 5 years had diarrheal episode in the 2 weeks preceding the survey and treatment was sought for 64 percent.
Twenty Six percent of children (6-59) months in Uganda are stunted or too short for their age, Karamoja leads in stunted children with 44 percent and Teso having the lowest number of 14 percent.
Only 3 percent of children are wasted (too thin for their height) a sign of malnutrition. 10 percent are underweight or too thin for their age.
“Infants under 5 mortality rates for the five year period before the survey are 36 and 52 deaths per 1000 live births, respectively. At these mortality levels , 1 in every 16 Ugandan children doesn’t survive their fifth birthday.”
It’s the report’s finding that Childhood mortality rates have declined since 2000-01 by half , from 71 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2006 to 36 in 2022.
That Children whose mothers have no education, die younger (59 deaths per 1,000 live births) than children whose mothers have more than Secondary school education (36 deaths per 1,000 live births) , well as there is a higher child mortality rate in poor families compared to the well off families.
The 2022 UDHS is the seventh Demographic and Health survey to be conducted in Uganda since 1989 with a view of providing current estimates of fertility levels, fertility preferences, marriage and sexual activity, family planning methods among others.
A sample consisted of 18,251 women aged 15- 49 years and 5,383 men aged 15- 54 years in 19,758 households.
