Эфиопия запустила единую национальную систему мониторинга здоровья и демографии

Incomplete vital statistics leave roughly 84pct of deaths unrecorded nationwide Ethiopia has officially launched a national Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) Network, uniting 16 university-based surveillance centers into a single unified framework hosted and administered by the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI). The platform links once-fragmented academic operations across the country to standardize health metrics, promote data sharing, and feed longitudinal evidence directly into national health policy. Representatives from the Ministry of Health (MoH), EPHI, participating universities, ImpactHDSS, Vital Strategies, and the Gates Foundation gathered in the capital on Wednesday to finalize the governance structure and sign a multi-institutional Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The initiative enters its final year of a three-year, USD4.9 million program funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, scheduled to phase out in 2027. The network directly addresses severe, long-standing deficits in national vital statistics reporting. Deputy Project Director at ImpactHDSS, Bantalem Yeshanew, highlighted that only about 16 percent of deaths in Ethiopia are officially registered, with birth registrations remaining similarly depressed. He noted that while health facility events are generally recorded, the vast majority of births and deaths occurring at home go unregistered. Lessons from past attempts to establish a national framework informed the current EPHI-anchored model to ensure long-term stability. From The Reporter Magazine Drought Emergency or Seasonal Deficit? Published on 2026-09-02 By The Reporter Magazine The Economy GDP Cannot Explain Published on 2026-08-01 By Samson Berhane 25-Year Sentences & Retroactive Laws: Controversial Draft Law Sparks Fears of Growing Authoritarianism in Tigray Published on 2026-06-21 By Yared Nigussie Red Sea Rivalries: What a Shifting Geopolitical Landscape Means for Ethiopia and The Horn Published on 2026-08-31 By Yared Nigussie The 16 founding sites track approximately 1.43 million people across 320,000 households in 238 kebeles, with researchers collecting household data every six months. While the initial rollout excluded Dire Dawa, the South Ethiopia Regional State, Gambela, and Somali regions, university sites in these regions and city administration have already submitted formal requests to join the network. The HDSS framework complements the country’s routine health system, the District Health Information System (DHIS), which collects monthly metrics from over 30,000 facilities with over 90 percent completeness. While the DHIS provides routine facility-based statistics, the new network generates community-level, longitudinal evidence to track health trends over time outside clinical settings.  Dr. Mesay Hailu, Director General of EPHI, added that establishing shared digital protocols across these university field sites will enable regions to exchange findings rapidly and translate surveillance evidence into responsive public health strategies.