Life expectancy in SA on the increase

The South African Medical Research Council's (SAMRC) Burden of Disease Research Unit has released its latest report on mortality in South Africa.

Medical Research Council Media Statement, 19 March 2014

The Rapid Mortality Surveillance Report 2012 is the second report in the series that derives estimates of key health status indicators based on data obtained from the National Population Register. The new report shows that average life expectancy in South Africa continued to increase reaching 61.3 years in 2012 - an increase of 0.6 years since 2011 and a staggering increase of seven years since the low in 2005.

This escalation in life expectancy is due primarily to a drop in the levels of child mortality as well as a decline in levels of young adult mortality.  It also shows that female life expectancy remains higher than male life expectancy by about 5.5 years and that the maternal mortality ratio has dropped to 269 deaths per 100 000 live births in 2010.

The 2012 report, an update of the 2011 Rapid Mortality Report, has had information from the 2011 Census incorporated into it in order to update estimates of the population and the number of births for calculating the rates for each year. It suggests that the key mortality targets to be achieved by the Minister of Health in the Negotiated Service Delivery Agreement for 2014 have all been met with the exception of neonatal mortality, which has remained stagnant at 12.5 per 1000 live births.

The report also shows that under-5 mortality and infant mortality rates have not improved. Dr Debbie Bradshaw, director of the MRC Burden of Disease Research Unit, said South Africa was unlikely to achieve the maternal and child health-related Millennium Development Goals by 2015 unless it urgently improved the quality of health services for mothers and new-borns; overcomes the challenges experienced with the HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programmes and improves basic living conditions.