Since the second evaluation, life expectancy at birth for both sexes increased by about 2.2 years from 56.1 in 1991 to 58.3 in 1995. The gap between urban and rural life expectancy is also narrowing. The main reason for the rise in life expectancy is the decline in infant and child mortality due to the successful implementation of the immunization programme as well as disease control programmes such as those for ARI and diarrhoeal disease. Though mortality rates have declined, infant and maternal mortality are still high. There has been an overall decline in morbidity during the period of reporting.
Morbidity is mainly due to infectious, parasitic and vector-borne diseases.
However, routine reporting of disease incidence is nonexistent or patchy at best, and disease surveillance has not been fully established. Disability Not much is known about the true prevalence of disability. The information available is from surveys. Visual impairment per 1000 population has been estimated at 11.98 and hearing impairment at 1.58.