WHO donated 10 Dell Latitude 5320 Laptops, valued at two hundred and eleven thousand Namibia Dollars (NAD 211,169.61) to the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) to support the completion of the 2nd Cause of Death Report for Namibia.  

Mr. Alex Shimuafeni, Statistician-General and CEO of the NSA, speaking at the handover ceremony said that NSA understands and appreciates the importance of administrative records and its role towards the production of official statistics. Death and birth registration records are hence one of those key administrative records that NSA has prioritized to produce Vital statistics and causes of death statistics. NSA has been working with its stakeholders such as the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration & Security Services (MHAISS) as well as the UN system to perfect the data sets over time.  He appreciated the donation of laptops from WHO as well as the technical support and capacity development of his staff which strengthen the NSA mandate to produce and disseminate timely, reliable, and quality official statistics.  

Speaking at the same occasion, Dr Charles Sagoe-Moses, WHO Representative, said that a robust Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) System is required for the generation of complete and accurate statistics on occurrence and cause of death as well as for other vital events such as births and marriages. He also stated that to standardize the reporting of death, WHO has developed a few tools and approaches that countries can use to improve the diagnosis and reporting of disease conditions and cause of death. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) - for coding diseases and causes of death is one of the tools developed by WHO to standardize the reporting of death and its eleventh (11th) revision was endorsed by WHO member states.  Dr  Sagoe Moses said that WHO is supporting the Member States to strengthen policies, strategies, processes to implement ICD compliant death notification and registration systems hence the donation of the laptops to strengthen the government’s capacity in coding and reporting.  

Evaluating the cause of death allows the country, to have an introspect of key health policies, strategies and interventions that require review and reset to ensure increase in life expectancy and the provision of quality health care for all.  Namibia Statistics Agency together with the National Civil Registration and Vital Statistics technical committee committed to producing regular reports on CR data specifically on the causes of death which aims to ensure a well-functioning Civil Registration and Vital Statistics System in the production of complete, accurate, relevant and timely statistics from these data, as well as in accordance with international standards. The well-functioning CRVS system would instrumental in generating evidence to inform public health policy, planning and budgeting, and legal documentation of occurrence and cause of death.  

The first report, launched in March 2021, reviewed a total of 19,254 and 18,448 deaths records that occurred in 2016 and 2017 respectively.   Communicable, maternal, prenatal and nutritional conditions accounted for 41.6 and 40.6 percent in 2016 and 2017 respectively.  HIV was ranked the first cause of death due to communicable diseases (136 per 100,000 population in 2016 and 124 per 100,000 population in 2017) followed by respiratory infections (74 per 100,000 population in 2016 and 71 per 100,000 population in 2017.   Amongst deaths caused by non-communicable diseases group, cardiovascular diseases (137 per 100,000 population in 2016 and 142 per 100,000 population in 2017), cancer stands at 51 deaths per 100,000 in both 2016 and 2017, hypertension (9 in 2016 and 8 in 2017) and diabetes (6 in 2016 and 7 in 2017) were major causes of deaths.  Khomas and Oshana regions recorded most deaths although this could be attributed to the fact that both regions house Referral hospitals.  

The second report which will use 2018-2020 data will help the government establish trends and patterns related to cause of death in the country.   This Information on the number of deaths and their cause over time is important in tracking progress towards national, regional and international health related goals. It will further help identify emerging diseases and conditions, contribute to the formulation of evidence-based health policies and tracking of the population health status.