Govt reports decline in deaths of mothers, babies

A report released yesterday by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) indicates that there has been a decline in the number of maternal and infant deaths in the country in the last seven years.

In the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) 2022 report, the number of mothers who died during pregnancy, delivery, or 42 days after delivery stood at 189 deaths per 100,000 live births. This means around 2,800 mothers died out of an estimated one-and-half million births.

This 2022 figure is lower than 336 deaths per live 100,000 births previously reported in 2016 but the figure is still very high when compared to countries like the United Kingdom, where only 10 women die out of 100,000 live births.

For infant mortality, the Ubos researchers also discovered that there was a slight decline from 43 to 36 deaths per 1,000 live births in the past five years (between 2016 and 2022), a figure which is very high when compared to four deaths per 1,000 live births reported in Europe.

Dr Chris Mukiza, the Ubos executive director, during the report launch said the results are consistent with what they have been getting. He explained that the survey, which was supported by the United Nations and the World Bank, was done between May and December 2022 in close to 20,000 households across the country.

“The indicators that we have been measuring, some have dramatically improved while others have gradually dropped while others are just plateauing, just a slight decline,” he said, asking the government to use the data for policy making for the wellbeing of all Ugandans.

Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, the Health minister, said the results show there is progress made by the government in terms of addressing the health needs of the population. 

The UDHS 2022, was designed as a follow-up for previous surveys and the latest having been conducted in 2016.

“The shift in various indicators as presented, is a result of successful health programmes that have been implemented over time with support from development partners. I have seen infant mortality (death of a baby before first birthday) has dropped from 43 to 36 deaths per 1,000 live births in the past five years (between 2016 and 2022),” she said.

According to the report, under-five mortality has also dropped from 64 to 52 deaths per 1,000 live births. “These may look small but they [health workers] did a lot of work for us to reach where we are. When you look at the regions, the statistics are not so good, and we need to find the reason behind it,” the minister said.

“Many of these look like a plateau but at least there is a drop. The [slight] decline is due to many reasons, one of them is that the funding to the health sector has not increased. The health workforce is still a big problem, health education and promotion need to be intensified for our population to know why they need to work on this and a lot more,” she added.

Commenting on the reduction in maternal mortality, the Lira City MP said it “Is not remarkable but it is good for us because efforts have been put and the government is making a lot of investment along with development partners.” There was an increase in the percentage of women giving birth in hospitals from 74 percent in 2016 to 91 percent in 2022, partly explaining the decline in maternal deaths. 

“Whereas we are still losing mothers during childbirth and labour, we can say a big congratulations because we have come from far, from nearly 501 to 189 deaths per 100,000. Some of the areas that we need to put emphasis on include nutrition and statistics for various regions,” Dr Aceng added.

The minister also said the release of the report is timely because government has a United Nations high-level meeting within a week’s time.

“If we didn’t have this, we could have gone out with old results [of 2016] but at least we are now going with good results. We will walk with our heads high after a difficult period of Covid-19 and an additional of Ebola [Virus Disease outbreak],” Dr Aceng said.