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Child mortality shows signs of falling in Tanzania

Teenage Tanzanian girls

Image courtesy of USAID

Tanzania was one of the first countries to produce their own Poverty Reduction Strategy. This strategy together with our budget support, is having an impact on child health.

According to preliminary survey results (see Key Facts below), there has been a significant fall in death rates for infants and children under five in Tanzania since the late 1990s.

Infant mortality rates (deaths before the age of 12 months) have fallen by almost a third between 2000-2005. Latest estimates show 68 deaths per 1,000 live births, down from 99 per 1,000 in 1999.
Under-five mortality rates have fallen by almost a quarter to 112 per 1,000, down from 147 per 1,000 in 1999, which beats DFID’s Public Service Agreement target for reducing under-five mortality rates, which is from a revised baseline of 165 per 1000 births to 139.
Malaria: the proportion of children under five sleeping under a mosquito net has increased by three-quarters to 36% since 1999. Of these, more than a quarter are now sleeping under an insecticide treated net. This progress is reflected in reductions in the incidence of malaria symptoms where 23% of children under five had a fever in the last two weeks compared with 35% five years ago
Vitamins: there have also been significant increases in the use of oral rehydration treatments and vitamin A supplements following diarrhoea

This is undoubtedly good news on child health. But the survey also shows that efforts to reduce maternal mortality must increase. Rates remain higher than most other countries in Africa and there has been no improvement in maternal death rates in the last decade.

These are early results and further analysis will now be done to get a better understanding of the causes behind the headline figures. (To be updated in September 2005).

How has DFID helped?

A huge insecticide treated net protects hundreds of Tanzanian school children: image courtesy of PSI DFID Tanzania has been supporting the Government of Tanzania’s efforts to improve health through the provision of budget support (£65 million last year and £75 million in 2005/06), which has enabled the government to increase its spending on the health sector, and by targeted initiatives such as SMARTNET – the social marketing of insecticide treated nets.

Recent improvements in child health to which our support has contributed include malaria treatment and the Government of Tanzania’s big push on the use of insecticide treated mosquito nets.

The government is encouraging the taking of vitamin A supplements and an increase in the exclusive breast-feeding of babies. There have also been improvements in district health planning and management.

Key facts

The Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS) for 2004-05 is a sample survey of around 10,000 households so these results are subject to a margin of error. These margins of error have not been published yet. But results from previous years show clearly that these are real falls in child mortality rather than the product of sampling variation
Evaluation of budget support in Tanzania shows that DFID assistance leads to increased public expenditure on priority areas like health and education
DFID's budget support to Tanzania will be £75m in 2005/06
Measles immunisation also rose impressively - from 72% in 1999 to90% in 2002. DFID also provides funding to the Tanzanian AIDS Commission.