Life expectancy up even amid pandemic
The average life expectancy of Bangladeshis has increased to 72.8 years in 2020 during the outbreak of coronavirus from 72.6 years in 2019, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
Last year, the life expectancy was 71.2 years for males and 74.5 years for females, up from 71.1 years for men and 74.2 years for women in 2019, according to the report styled "Monitoring the Situation of Vital Statistics of Bangladesh".
The life expectancy would have increased more were Covid not there, said Saleh Mahmood Tusher of Dhaka Medical College Hospital's Covid unit.
The number of deaths due to cold-related diseases, especially pneumonia, was low in 2020 due to health guidelines in place, he said, adding that the average life expectancy might have increased for this reason.
As of January 1, 2021, Bangladesh's total population stood at 169.1 million; among them, 84.6 million were men and 84.5 million women, according to the report, which was unveiled yesterday by Planning Minister MA Mannan at the BBS office.
"Why can't we get real-time data? The technology is there -- why count the heads every 10 years?" Mannan asked
With the click of a button, it is possible to know the number of people in a union at a given point in time, he said, while urging the BBS, which falls under the planning ministry, to provide clean and precise information since many remain sceptical about the government's statistics.
The government has made a significant increase in terms of electricity and sanitary toilet facility, according to the planning minister.
In 2020, 96.2 percent of the households owned electricity connections and 81.5 percent of households had sanitary toilet facility, according to the report.
The literacy rate among people over 15 rose to 75.6 percent in 2020 from 74.7 in 2019, with a large rural-urban gap. The adult literacy rate in rural areas was at 69.8 percent against 82.8 percent in urban areas.
Women were behind men in terms of attaining literacy, as 73 percent of women were literate compared with 78.2 percent of the men.
Females were also lagging in technology participation, according to the report.
Only 63.4 percent of the women in Bangladesh own a mobile phone and of them, 34.3 percent use the internet. The percentage of men using mobile phones is 87.6 percent and of them, 52.7 percent use the internet.
However, 73.5 percent of families in the country now use the internet.
Although the overall maternal mortality rate has fallen in 2020 as well as the complications during childbirth, the rate increased in the urban areas from 2019: for every 1,000 live births, there was 1.38 mortality as opposed to 1.23 in 2019.
However, rural women are still in a disadvantageous position with a higher risk of dying (1.78) than their urban counterparts.
The urban postneonatal (6 in 2020 from 5 in 2019) and the under-5 mortality rates (28 in 2020 from 27 in 2019) of male children have also increased in 2020.
The major cause of death of infants and under-5 children was pneumonia. The other respiratory diseases, drowning, malnutrition and fever also caused deaths.
The Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR), which is the rate of married women aged 15-49 using any method of contraception, is currently 63.9 percent.
Urban women are more likely (64.7 percent) to adopt family planning methods than their rural counterparts (63.1 percent), according to the report.
The use rate was found to be the highest among the women in the Rangpur division (73.4 percent) and the lowest (32.7 percent) among the women of the Sylhet division.
There has been an overall increase in CPR, but there was a massive service disruption of contraceptives during the pandemic due to the closure of government facilities as well as dispensaries, said Pulak Raha, team leader at Advance Family Planning initiative.
"This is why we are advocating the government to develop an online service like an app, through which people can order contraceptives, and the government's staff working on family planning services can send those."
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