Sample Solution

children per woman as of 2016, Madagascar’s population is very young and growing rapidly. More than three-quarters of the Malagasy people live in rural and often isolated areas, far from health facilities. Quite a few live in extreme poverty, limiting their financial access to health services. Madagascar also has a high maternal mortality rate due to lack of access to key reproductive health services and low availability of skilled assistance during childbirth. Even after gaining independence from France, this sector remained inadequate, with the staff and infrastructure for health concentrated in serving the elites.
Madagascar has taken a strong hold on many of the diseases prevalent. Poliomyelitis is almost eradicated; the country is no longer poliovirus-infected, but at high risk of outbreaks. There have been setbacks with deadly plague epidemic in Madagascar that could trigger an outbreak of polio. Leprosy prevalence is less than 1 per 10000. Madagascar stands apart from sub-Saharan African nations with regard to HIV/AIDS rates. At below 0.3%, it is the lowest prevalence rate in Sub-Saharan. A significant reason for this is Madagascar’s geography as an island, which greatly reduces the cross-border transfer of people, especially traders, truck drivers and migrant workers. This geographic isolation has also shielded Madagascar from human trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) that is widespread in southern Africa. This created a window of opportunity for prevention programmes to be established in Madagascar before the disease became widespread. The National AIDS prevention plan carried out by the government prior to the political crisis of 2009 and the actions of international aid agencies and NGOs have been invaluable in raising awareness of HIV and preventive measures to contain the epidemic. However, Madagascar remains at high risk of HIV spreading further. The Antiretrovirals drugs are available to only two per cent of people living with HIV/AIDS in Madagascar and hence, needs to become more accessible. Many of the containment efforts and education campaigns that have kept the disease at bay so far have faltered during the political crisis and to rebuild and extend these programmes to enhance awareness, diagnosis and tre