Background
The World Health
Organization (WHO) is operating in Angola since 15 May
1976. WHO country office is lead by an international
Resident Representative, appointed by the regional director
for Africa with official agreement from the government.
The main role of WHO is to provide technical assistance
to improve health situation in the country. Three
years after the end of the civil war, on April 2004,
WHO is fully committed to working very close with Angola
in improving its health indicators, stands amongst the
worst in the world. Currently, only 44,5 percent of
the population is covered by health services. The maternal
mortality rate in the country is estimated in 1850/100,000
per live births. In Luanda, the capital, only 62% of
the pregnant women have access to health facilities.
The mortality rate among children under 5 year-old is
estimated in 250/1,000 live births, meaning that about
181.000 children are dying per year. For example, severe
malnutrition affects about 45% of children under 5 years
old.
The country is also
vulnerable to the occurrence of epidemics. Due to poor
sanitation and water supply systems in presence of shrunk
and ill preventive programmes, including low routine
immunization coverage, Angola has over the past years
faced various outbreaks: poliomyelitis in 1999, with
a total of 1,117 children affected; meningitis with
1263 cases with 152 deaths until October 2002 and Marburg
with 318 deaths from October 2004 to 19 July 2005. Malaria
also remains the main cause of morbidity, with 40 percent
of the children dying in the first five years of life
and one forth of maternal mortality associated to malaria
conditions. The lethality rate in hospitals stands at
between 15% and 30%. Malaria accounts for around 80%
of the demand for care and 50% of the in-patients in
health services. According to national reports, Acute
Respiratory Diseases and Diarrhoeal Diseases are the
2 nd most causes of morbidity and mortality. All together,
according to the recent assessment carried out in the
provinces by MOH and partners, the three diseases account
for approximately 70 percent of all causes of morbidity
and 60 percent of all causes of mortality. Concerning
Tuberculosis (TB) control, t he main challenge is to
expand DOTS strategy to treat 85% of a total of 27,000
the TB patients registered in the country.
Factors such as the
massive destruction of the health network, the deterioration
of the socio-economic structures, the great population
movements, and HIV/AIDS threat, are all at the root
of worsening health status of the people in Angola.
Some of these factors further explain the poor capacity
of the services to detect and treat other chronic diseases,
including Leprosy and Trypanosomiasis. However, the
low level of HIV infection (2,8% among pregnant women),
the end of the war and the high national and international
commitment placed Angola in good to scale up rapid interventions
to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS, such as information
dissemination, education and disease prevention measures.
According to official data, about 65% of the health
units were destroyed during the war, especially in the
peripheral areas. In the last 10 years, thanks to an
high level commitment and very strong partnership and
coordination, Angola achieved tremendous results in
its Expanded Programme for Immunization (Polio, measles,
tetanus, etc.). Concerning polio, for instance, Angola
registered the last wild virus case on September 2001and,
to date, no case has been reported. This was reached
thanks to the strong political commitment and leadership
of MOH, good organization by the national stakeholders
both at the central and provincial level and the strong
work done by the partners among WHO, UNICEF, Rotary
International, USAID, CDC Atlanta, CORE, UK, the Netherlands,
and NGOs in general are included.
Objectives:
-
To reduce mortality, morbidity
and disability rate due to the prevailing diseases,
especially among children and pregnant;
-
To promote healthy environment
and lifestyles to reduce health risks and to improve
health determinants;
-
To develop and to strengthen
health the national health Systems,
-
To develop an enabling policy
and institutional environment in the health sector,
and to promote an effective health dimension to
social, economic, environmental and development
policy
-
To reinforce Partnership and Resource
Mobilization for health development;
Strategies:
- To strengthen Implementation of priority
Health Programmes (Health Systems Development; Human
Resources; Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control;
Immunisation and vaccine development; Reproductive
Health; Emergency and Humanitarian Action; Health
Promotion; Communicable disease research; Food Safety;
Nutrition; Health and environment; Child and adolescent
health; Essential medicines; Essential health technologies;
Policy making for health in development; Epidemic
alert and response; Emergency preparedness and response;
- To support rehabilitation of the municipal
health system in order to improve delivery of quality
health services at national, provincial and municipal
level;
- To strengthen HIV/AIDS control and
surveillance activities to increase awareness and
to stop the spread of this disease.
- To reinforce advocacy to include
health in the national agenda for development and
in the fight for poverty reduction;
- To promote sustainable livelihoods,
good governance and decentralization;
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