Airborne diseases major cause for morbidity

MUSCAT: Even as the Sultanate witnessed a significant fall in communicable diseases over the last two decades, airborne infections were the main cause of morbidity both among outpatient and inpatients in 2020.

According to the Annual Report by the Ministry of Health, airborne infections are the main cause for inpatient morbidity which stood at 9.3 per cent in 2020.

Outpatient morbidity for both communicable and non-communicable diseases for the years from 1996 to 2020 has reached their endemic levels with fluctuations up and down each year, according to the report.

“The Sultanate is witnessing an epidemiological transition from communicable to non-communicable diseases. This could be attributed partly to changes in lifestyle, changes in demographic patterns and concerted activities directed towards control of communicable diseases”, says the report.

Communicable diseases contributed about 43.2 per cent of the total outpatient cases in 1996 compared to 24.6 in 2020 and non-communicable diseases led to 42.5 per cent in 1996 compared to 45.1 per cent in 2020.

“On an average, every individual in the population presented by a disease episode at the outpatient clinics 2.3 times during 2020”, the report says.

Inpatient discharges from MoH hospitals represent about 86 per cent of total discharges from all hospitals in the Sultanate.

The non-communicable diseases have also decreased from 395 per 10,000 populations in 1995 to 185 in 2020.

Diseases of respiratory system, which accounted for the highest number of discharges, has decreased to 9 per 10,000 population in 2020 compared to 25 in 2010. Diseases of the circulatory system decreased to 28 per every 10,000 population from 48 per every 10,000 population during the same period.

The main causes of injuries and poisoning morbidity were due to falls at 39.8 per cent, followed by exposure to mechanical forces at18.2 per cent and road accidents at17.6 per cent.

Although about 30.3 per cent of the external causes of morbidity were reported among the aged less than 10 years, in-depth analysis of data reveals that children below 5 are those most frequently exposed to external causes at 18.9 per cent, followed by the children in the age group 5-14.

The external causes of morbidity were different among different age groups.

In young children below 15 years and aged individual above 60 years, the main external cause of morbidity was found to be falls, while in age group 15 – 44, the main cause was found to be road accident.