Birth, death data capture systems failing

By ANTHONY KITIMO

The registration of births and deaths across 47 countries in Africa has either collapsed or become weaker in the advent of the pandemic, and it will take years for governments to come up with real data needed for future planning.

According to research by the UN agency, Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), non-digitised Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) do not have fully functional systems and have failed to capture real-time mortality, which is crucial for monitoring levels and trends during pandemics.

Oliver Chinganya, the director of the African Centre for Statistics at ECA said Covid-19 exposed the vulnerabilities and inadequacies of Africa’s CRVS. He said Covid-19 has fragilised the systems’ ability to perform core functions of “continuous, permanent, compulsory, universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events pertaining to the population.”

The CA research however found that countries with digital registration systems experienced fewer disruptions, as digital tools make it possible for the public to notify and register births and deaths in real time.

National lockdowns were also blamed for the steep declines in registration, causing a backlog and there is no guarantee that late reports will ever be done. The pandemic disrupted most civil registration services.