Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, Government Statistician
An assessment of the 2022-2025 Health Sector Medium Term Development Plan (HSMTDP) targets have revealed that six out of the 15 selected indicators from the 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) have been achieved.
This means that there has been progress overtime between the 2014 GDHS and 2022 GDHS concerning the six targets, which are total fertility rate, prevalence of anemia in children, stunting, wasting, infant mortality and under-five mortality therefore showing positive improvements.
This information was presented by Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim at Ghana’s Health Sector Annual Summit in Accra.
He stated that although there was advancement with the six indicators, progress of the remaining seven indicators was undefined due to variations between the baseline figure in the HSMTD and the 2014 DHS.
Prof. Annim however stated that between the two surveys, there was an increase in the rate of teenage pregnancy and the per cent of children under 15 that were underweight.
He also added that although findings indicate that the targets have been achieved at the national level, several regions fall short of the targets.
“For instance, in six regions; Oti at 60.6 per cent, Upper West at 61.2 per cent, Savannah at 62.7 per cent, North East at 64.9 per cent, Upper East at 69.4 per cent and Northern at 69.4 per cent do not meet the national target for anemia prevalence of 60.0 per cent with prevalence over 10 percentage points higher than the national average of 40.9 per cent,” he explained.
He further noted that substantial regional disparities were observed in all the indicators.
“In the Savannah Region, 72.0 per cent, Northern 71.6 per cent, and the Oti Region 70.3 per cent, less than three-quarters of births were delivered by skilled provider compared to eight regions with over 90 per cent skilled birth attendance coverage, led by Upper East at 98.0 per cent,” he said.
The government statistician also said that the percent of children 12 to 23 months with no vaccinations is highest in the Northern Region by 9.0 per cent and Ahafo by 8.3 per cent while five regions have less than 0.1 per cent of children without vaccinations.
“Stunting in children under five is highest in the Northern Region with 29.6 per cent and North East with 29.3 per cent where the prevalence is almost three times that of Eastern Region at 10.4 per cent being the region with the lowest per cent of stunted children under five,” he added.
By Abigail Atinuke Seyram Adeyemi