Cape Verde Health Profile 2012

Cape Verde has already achieved the reduction of child mortality MDG. The under-five mortality rate decreased from 56 per thousand in 1990 to 25.7 per thousand in 2007. Moreover, vaccinated children between 0-11 months were 73.2% in 2007 and are expected to be 85% in 2010. There is almost universal access to reproductive health (97.5% coverage of pregnant women), but the maternal mortality ratio is currently higher than MDG target of not more than 17.3 per 100 000 by 2015.

As of 2007, 2 329 cases of HIV/AIDS had been reported with 319 new cases that year (0.8% prevalence rate), but it is estimated that this represents only half of overall cases. Screening tests for HIV increased considerably from 3 069 in 2003 to 8 159 in 2005.

Malaria has low endemicity in Cape Verde (3.7 per 100 000 people was the prevalence rate in 2007), while 294 new cases of tuberculosis were registered in 2007 (51.9 per 100 000 prevalence rate).

Epidemics of German measles and dengue broke out in 2009. The latter was the first ever registered in Cape Verde and peaked at 1 000 new cases per day on 4 November 2009. Overall, about 20 000 suspected cases of dengue were registered in late 2009. An effective national mobilisation to reduce vectors of transmission and the prompt reaction of the national health system with the support of international doctors made it possible to overcome the emergency. Moreover, the system of e-medicine and connectivity across hospitals allowed a proper monitoring of the epidemics.

Medical care is free in general, except for a fixed cost that depends on revenue and ranges from a minimum of CVE 50 to a maximum of CVE 1 000. Health represented 4.31% of the 2009 budget, mostly allocated to improve human resources and infrastructures for primary health care, including immunisation, prevention, sensitisation and rehabilitation. Even though about 60% of the population is under 25 years, the steady improvement in life expectancy (estimated at 72.7 years in 2009) implies an increase in the incidence of age-related diseases, which highlights the insufficiency of specialised doctors in the country.

The seventh MDG target – halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation – has been achieved in part. The population with access to drinking water increased from 42% in 1990 to 89.5% in 2007. Local inequalities persist, however, with 98.6% access in urban areas against only 75.8% in rural ones.

At the same time, in 2007 only 40.8% of households (57.4% urban and 15.9% rural) had access to septic tanks or sewer network. Moreover, 53.3% of rural and 22.7% of urban households did not have water closets or latrines in 2007. In the same year, about 63% of households had access to some form of solid residual collecting, but with wide differences between urban and rural areas (88.5% versus 24.3%). Sanitation accounted for 3.93% of the 2009 budget (while water accounted for 3.38%), but developing a national strategy for basic sanitation remains a challenge.