East Africa: Region Records Rise in Life Expectancy
By Eric Sande
NAIROBI---A report released today at the Silver Springs Hotel, Nairobi gives Kenyans a sigh of hope since they now can expect to live longer than they did two years ago.
The 2010 State of the World Population (SWP), report indicates Kenyans have an average chance of living for 55.5 years, an increase in life expectancy by seven months for women and five for men. This has placed Kenya, the strongest economy in the East African Community (EAC) in the second position in the region, with its women's average life expectancy standing at 56 years, and the men expected to live up to 55 years .
This marks a slight enhancement from the 2008 report which leveraged life expectancy to stand at 54 years for both men and women, according to World Health Organisation and World Bank statistics.
Tanzania held the mantle in the region with a life expectancy of 57 years and one month for women, and 55 years and five months for men increasing by six months over last year.
Uganda comes third with the lowest life expectancy at 54.1 years, with men living longer (54.8 years) than women.
Burundi trailed at fourth position with a life expectancy of 52 years and nine months for women, and 49 years and eight months for men.
Despite having the highest life expectancy in the region, Tanzania's achievements are marred by a high HIV/Aids infection rate among people aged between 15 and 49 years, which stands at 6.2 per cent followed by Uganda's 5.4 per cent.
Although HIV/Aids infection rate statistics were not given in the report for Burundi and Kenya, Rwanda appears to have the lowest score of only 2.8 per cent.
Factors influencing the livelihood include the quality of life that is mainly determined by income levels, education, health expenditure and access to safe water.
The world’s highest life expectancy is 86.6 years, which blankets the Japanese women.
The theme of the report is From conflict and crisis to renewal: Generations of change. It indicates an increase in population by two million in Kenya’s population standing at 40.9 million people from where it stood last year when the National Population and Housing Census was conducted up from 38.6 million. This makes Kenya’s population growth still at 2.6 per cent per annum.
“Many young Kenyans were affected by the 2008 violence during which at least 1,000 people are thought to have died in inter-ethnic violence and many more were driven from their homes,” says the report.
Illiteracy levels as indicated in the report placed Rwanda on top with an estimate of about 33.9 per cent of girls and 25.2 per cent of boys of that age being illiterate. Burundi has only 2.1 per cent of the girls below 15 years and 1.4 of the boys of the same age, who cannot read and write.