By Patience Lunda:
The National Statistical Office (NSO) has finalised the Malawi Demographic and Health Survey.
Officials from the office say they are consolidating data that have been collected.
The data collecting and disseminating body says a preliminary report of the survey would be out after six months, which will be in March next year, while the main report would be out in September 2025.
NSO spokesperson Sam Chipokosa said data collection of the survey started in May this year and that they were consolidating the collected data in readiness for data cleaning and analysis.
Chipokosa said the survey would enable the country to have updated statistics on issues of health.
He, however, said the survey encountered challenges, especially when they were collecting blood samples of respondents, as they would disagree and, in other areas, would find it hard to find male respondents—as they could be out doing other things.
“All the issues to do with nutrition, family planning, HIV and Aids will have updated numbers, in terms of how we have moved from the previous round, which was conducted years back, to the one conducted this year and we will have updated numbers,” he said.
The survey provides data needed to monitor and evaluate population, health and nutrition on a regular basis.
The survey is supposed to be done every five years but it was last done in 2015-16.
On his part, Health rights activist Maziko Matemba said the survey would go a long way in determining if the health sector’s indicators were improving.
“This is an opportunity for us, stakeholders working in the health sector, to appreciate whether we have improved,” Matemba said.
NSO has plans to conduct four surveys this year but, this far, two surveys have been completed, with Malawians awaiting release of results.
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