H’tota records highest life expectancy

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

Hambantota district records the highest life expectancy figure in Sri Lanka with Colombo recording the lowest. Sri Lanka’s life expectancy has gone to around 79 years for women and around 72 years for men. ‘Sri Lanka records a higher life expectancy than Malaysia, Health Ministry additional secretary Dr. Palitha Mahipala said.

Addressing a seminar on ‘The World at 7 Billion’ at the Health Education Bureau yesterday, Dr. Mahipala said that Sri Lanka records 385,000 births annually.

“Sri Lanka and Australia each record a total population of 20 million now. In one year, the number of Sri Lankans who migrated was higher than the number of deaths. Therefore migration is one of the major factors that has an impact on population,” he said. According to Dr. Mahipala, Sri Lanka has a young population of around five million which can be used for rapid development of the country. “Development strategies should be planned enabling to use the labour of this young population. But at the same time Sri Lanka will have a challenge in the future with a large adult population,” he said.

The adult population is on the rise in Sri Lanka because of advancement of health care etc. “There will be some problems such as the increase in Non-Communicable Diseases, increasing female population, increasing mental disorders, rise in accidents etc, with the growth of elderly population,” he said