Life expectancy
I have been here in Sitima for seven months now and every single week I hear of at least one death from within this rural community. Miserably, deaths are often amongst children and young adults; the saddest one for me being the death of baby Emily who I first met when she was just seven hours old, such a beautiful little girl. Sadly at 10 days old, little Emily died in her mother’s arms as they queued to see a doctor. It was a Wednesday morning and that very same afternoon her mother took her to the cemetery to be buried.
Thinking about deaths over here has made me explore life expectancy rates in Malawi as compared to UK
The most recent figures I have been able to obtain from World Health Organisation, show that UK life expectancy is at 79.4 years for men and 83.1 years for women whereas the rates for Malawi are considerably lower at 61 for men and 67 for women. Whilst the comparison doesn’t look that great the good news is that life expectancy in Malawi is on the increase year by year.
The rise is due to a number of factors; -
An increase in the number and quality of health education programmes
Availability of anti retroviral drugs to combat the effects of HIV
More people having access to clean water for drinking and washing
An expanded immunisation programme
And many other measures aimed at specific geographical areas and target groups of the population.
The photo here is one of a wonderful lady who certainly bucks the trend. She is blind, immobile and always totally cheerful. She spends her days sitting on the khonde (veranda) doing what she can to support her extended family, from shelling peas to nursing babies. Neither she nor anybody else knows just how old she is but it is estimated that she is well into her nineties.
N4BW is very keen to do our bit in helping other people to live as long and as none of us are health specialists we are putting our energies into developing a clean water programme through the introduction of boreholes, sustainable water filters and the provision of simple things like lidded water containers.