Health in South Sudan

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The post conflict South Sudan has huge challenges in delivering health care to the population. The challenges include: crippled health infrastructures, nearly collapsed public health system, and inadequate qualified health professionals. The country is far from achieving the MDGs by end of 2015. The health system needs a major resuscitation, in addition to supporting and developing health training institutions.

South Sudan is acknowledged to have some of the worst

health indicators in the world.[1][2][3]

A new measure of expected human capital calculated for 195 countries from 1990 to 2016 and defined for each birth cohort as the expected years lived from age 20 to 64 years and adjusted for educational attainment, learning or education quality, and functional health status was published by The Lancet in September 2018. South Sudan had the second lowest level of expected human capital countries with 2 health, education, and learning-adjusted expected years lived between age 20 and 64 years. This was an improvement over 1990 when its score was 1.[4]

Health system

NGO. The health services are meant to be free and accessible to the majority of the population at the primary and secondary levels.[6]

The national ministry of health (MoH) have a decentralized health services in line with the interim constitution of South Sudan[7] (2005) and local government act (2009).[6] The decentralized organization structure has four levels: Central, state, county and the community.[8] The national ministry of health provides policy guidance, leadership, funding, monitoring and evaluation. The state level oversees the implementation of health care services delivery at the rest of the levels.

Health indicators

The health situation South Sudan is far from ideal. More than 50% of the population live below the

infant mortality rate (IMR) was at 64/1,000 live births. The life expectancy is 55 years.[10] In 2004, there were only three surgeons serving southern Sudan, with three proper hospitals, and in some areas there was just one doctor for every 500,000 people.[1]
A child born in South Sudan has a 25% chance of dying before their 5th birthday. The major causes of the mortality include pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and malnutrition.[9] The country has the lowest
vaccinations dropped from 27 to 26% in 2006 and 2010 respectively.[12]
The ANC coverage is very low at 40.3% women attending first visit and 17% women who completed the four recommended visit. Most of the maternal deaths occur during labor, delivery and the immediate postpartum period. Most of these deaths would have been prevented if the country had good
child birth
. The human resource for health in South Sudan is far below the minimum threshold recommended by the
midwives in the country and the ratio was 1 per 39,088 population.[14] However, there is variation in the figures; other sources suggested the ratio of midwives as 1:125,000 women.[15]

Food insecurity

In October 2014 Oxfam warned that 2.2 million people were facing starvation.[16] The 2017 South Sudan famine occurred after several years of food insecurity and affected an estimated five million people, just under half the national population.[17][18]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Ross, Emma (28 January 2004). Southern Sudan has unique combination of worst diseases in the world. Sudan Tribune.
  2. BMJ
    .
  3. ^ a b "South Sudan Household Survey" (PDF). South Sudan Medical Journal. December 2007.
  4. ^ Lim, Stephen; et, al. "Measuring human capital: a systematic analysis of 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016". Lancet. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  5. ^ "Health system". Gurtong. Retrieved 4 August 2011.
  6. ^ a b c Government of South Sudan. Ministry of Health, 2011. Government of South Sudan.
  7. ^ Government of south sudan. The transitional constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, 2011. Government of South Sudan.
  8. ^ Government of South Sudan. Health Sector Strategic Plan 2011-2015. Government of South Sudan.
  9. ^ a b Government of South Sudan. National Bureau of Statistics,2011. Government of South Sudan.
  10. ^ UNICEF. "State of the world's children, 2013". www.unicef.org.
  11. ^ Unicef South Sudan,2011. "Children in South Sudan".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Government of South Sudan. National Bureau of Statistics,2012. Government of South Sudan.
  13. ^ Gupta, N. "Human resources for maternal, newborn and child health: from measurement and planning to performance for improved health outcomes. Human Resources for Health, 9, Article 16".
  14. ^ WHO. "South Sudan". www.who.int/.
  15. ^ Kolok, M. "South Sudan, 12 July 2013: Maternal mortality, a big challenge for the world's newest nation". UNICEF.
  16. ^ Guilbert, Kieran (Oct 5, 2014). "Famine threatens South Sudan if conflict deepens - report". Reuters. Retrieved May 14, 2017.
  17. ^ "Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, The Republic of South Sudan" (PDF). Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. May 2017.
  18. ^ "Hunger rising in South Sudan despite ebb in famine: UN agencies". UN News. 2017-06-21. Retrieved 2018-09-30.