INVESTING in the health of the population of Myanmar will also boost the socioeconomic development of the country, said a senior official from the Ministry of Health.

U Aung Kyaing, the deputy director general of the ministry, said that people constitute the most important aspect of sustainable development and are entitled to a healthy and productive life.

“The health of the population in general, and of the work force in particular, determines the rate of any country’s socioeconomic development, which in turn promotes a higher living standard and quality of life,” he said.

Myanmar, which is in the midst of socioeconomic, demographic and epidemiological transitions, is on the verge of controlling its major public health diseases with larger allocations of government money and the assistance of international organisations.

The ministry spent K20 billion on health in the 2004-2005 fiscal year that ended at the end of March, an increase from K17.5 billion the previous year, said U Aung Kyaing.

The government has implemented a number of programs to boost the efficiency of health care in Myanmar.

In 1993, for example, it introduced a cost-sharing system at public hospitals that helped fund patients who could not afford required medical treatments.

Every hospital was required to establish a trust fund – consisting of a pool of money contributed by the community and other donors – to help poor patients pay their hospital fees.

During the past 12 years, the aggregate fund from more than 530 hospitals amounted to about K7 billion, U Aung Kyaing said.

He said that the ratio of doctors in the overall population has increased from one doctor for every 3300 people in 2000, to one in 3000 in 2004.

There were 16,245 midwives in 2004, up from 11,951 in 2000, while there were about 18,000 nurses in 2004, an increase of about 3700 during the same period.

The government now offers 23 kinds of diploma courses and 29 kinds of masters degree courses for medical sciences for those who want to pursue postgraduate studies. Seven doctoral courses are also available in Myanmar.

The country also achieved ‘leprosy elimination’ status in 2003, which means the disease now occurs in fewer than one in every 10,000 people – the rate decreased from 0.51 in 10,000 at the end of 2003, to 0.49 in 10,000 by the end of 2004, said U Aung Kyaing.

Also in 2003 the country declared ‘polio free’ status.

“Now is the critical moment for the ministry to maintain those achievements,” said U Aung Kyaing.

One of the most spectacular aid packages from which Myanmar benefits is US$54 million from the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to fight those three diseases in the country, he said.

Malaria, a disease that was discovered more than 100 years ago, remains a major public health problem in Myanmar despite a decline in the number of annual death – from 4386 in 1994 to about 1950 in 2004.

The prevalence rate has also dropped, from 1.4 per cent of the population in 2002-2003, to 1.1 per cent in 2004-2005.

The disease is especially persistent in border and mountainous areas despite strenuous efforts by medical personnel to eradicate it.

Tuberculosis, another disease that was first identified about 100 years ago, has experienced a resurgence in the past 10 years. The problem is aggravated by increasing population density, malnutrition, poverty and co-infections of HIV.

According to an official from the National Tuberculosis Program, 20 million people in Myanmar – about 40 per cent of the entire population – are infected with tuberculosis. Of these, about 80,000 develop multi-drug-resistant strains, and 40,000 develop highly infectious sputum-smear-positive cases. The reported annual death rate consists of about five percent of these latter cases.

According to government figures, more than five per cent of tuberculosis patients are co-infected with HIV/AIDS, while about 60 to 70 per cent of AIDS patients suffer from the disease.

The Ministry of Health estimated that there were about 330,000 people infected with HIV/AIDS in Myanmar in 2004.

As Myanmar moves towards a market economy, with increasing urbanisation and more industrialisation, deaths due to trauma following road traffic accidents and accidents in the workplace are likely to increase, according to the World Health Organisation.

Longer life expectancy also contributes to an increasing incidence of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease, it said.

The life expectancy at birth in Myanmar has increased to approximately 61 years for men and 65 for women, up from 59.7 for men, and 62 to 64 years for women 10 years ago.

This implies that more provisions must be made for health care for the elderly in the future, according to the organisation.

In 2000 the government developed the 30-year Myanmar Health Vision program, with the aim of increasing the nation’s life expectancy to 75 to 80 years by 2030, up 15 years from 2000.

The program also intends to reduce the 2000 infant death rate of 59.7 per 1000 live births by 38 per cent by 2030, and the death rate of children aged five and under from 77.77 per 1000 live births to 52 per 1000.

Within the same period, the government will work to reduce the maternal death rate from 2.55 to 0.9 per 1000.

Yet the country still faces challenges to achieving these goals – including malnutrition, environmental pollution, alcohol and tobacco consumption, and other unhealthy lifestyles.

Another problem is the widespread lack of knowledge about health care issues.

U Aung Kyaing urged people to learn about behaviours and activities that can promote health and prevent medical problems, rather than seeking treatment only when they become ill.

“When you are healthy, you don’t need to spend money on medical treatment,” he said.