In fact, the decline has not yet reached a reasonable minimum that could suggest noticeable improvement in the health status of the population at both macro and micro levels. The adult mortality situation on the other hand is very high even by sub-Saharan African standards. About 35 percent of those who survive childhood hazards up to age 15 are not expected to celebrate their 60th anniversary compared to barely 20 percent for some other countries of the sub continent. Even when compared to the childhood mortality situation, Cameroon is a country with very poor health for adults. As the results suggest, not only is there need for greater efforts to improve the survival of children in the country, but in addition, it is also necessary to institute strategies to maintain their health when they survive childhood.
Refugees constitute a rather special category of the population.
For this sub-group of the entire population, a problem of definition is raised which unfortunately has not been addressed by the different studies devoted to the refugee population. When we consider the nutritional status of refugee children aged between 0 and 5 years, it appears that it is of the most precarious ones. The syntheses made show that one of the factors which would favour the maintenance of a satisfactory nutritional status for the populations, following social unrest, is the integration of the refugee population into the indigenous population without the construction of refugee camps. Whereas those Somali refugees in Ethiopia in 1988-1989, hosted in refugee camps, had a poor nutritional status when compared to that of the indigenous population.