Life expectancy in The Gambia has increased from 42 to 55 years, due to improved primary health care, the ‘Daily Observer’ newspaper reported on Monday. The paper quoted Abdoulie Sallah, secretary of state for health, as saying that immunisation for children under five years had increased from 27 percent in 1987 to 73 percent in 1999. He said the child mortality rate had fallen from 213 per 1,000 in 1960 to 80 per 1,000. The maternal mortality rate was reduced from 2,000 per 100,000 to 1,050 per 100,000 in the 1990s, Sallah said.
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