Report on the Health Achievements during the Years of Renaissance
5/7/2018
Sultanate of Oman has accomplished explicit achievements in the area of health statue development due to the political commitment taken on the part of the government for the provision of health for all the population and because of the extensive efforts made by the government, which received commendation by all international organizations and bodies. The international organization considered Oman one of the fastest countries in reducing child mortality rates during the eighties and the nineties. The reduction ofchild mortality rates continues for the next two decades as the infant mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) declined from 118 in 1972 to 16.7 in 2000 and then to 9.5 in 2017. The under-five mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) decreased from 181 in 1972 to 11.6 in 2017 and the crude mortality rate was 2.9 per 1000 population during the same period, accompanied by an increase in life expectancy at birth from 49.3 to 76.9 years.
Controlling the communicable diseases and hazardous diseases of childhood was the main reason for the decrease in mortality rates. The strategies adopted by the ministry led to the absence of certain diseases such as polio, diphtheria and neonatal tetanus in the Sultanate during the past two decades. There have been no cases of measles during the past two years. Moreover, the Hepatitis cases dropped by 68% compared to 2005 and the Malaria was controlled knowing that there was one out of every three individuals in the community suffering from malaria in 1975 as 241,431 malaria cases were reported at the time. However, with control measures the number of cases decreased to more than 33 thousand cases in 1990. As a result, the Ministry decided to commence the malaria eradication program since the disease has negative effects on the health of individuals and on the health services as well. The number of cases decreased rapidly and reached only 1,087 cases during 2017, most of them were foreign as only 19 local infections were registered during the same year.
The Ministry's strategies adopted in controlling pediatric malnutrition have also succeeded in reducing underweight children under five years of age from 23.6% in 1995 to 3.1%, weight gain and obesity by 1.1% in 2017, Emaciation decreased from 13% to 9.3%, and the stunting from 22.9% to 11.4% during the same period.
Furthermore, in the field of maternal health and care, the rate of early pregnancy care was about 73.3%. Only less than 1% of mothers giving birth were not registered for pregnancy care services. The average number of visits for pregnancy follow-up services was 5.8 compared to the recommended 6 visits. The maternal mortality rate dropped to 20.2 (per 100,000 live births) in 2017 compared to 26.4 in 2010.