385,000 annual births in Sri Lanka

World population reaches 7 billion

By Maheesha Mudugamuwa

The world’s population will reach 7 billion on October 31. Approximately 227,400 births get added daily. Nearly 385, 000 births are recorded per year in Sri Lanka and the current population growth rate is 0.93 percent.

Even though the world population is continuing to increase dramatically, Sri Lanka is hardly replacing its own population with the country’s birth rate at 0.93 as compared to the death rate of 0.592.

Ministry of Health, Health Education Bureau Medical Officer, Dr. Uthpala P.M.T. Amarasinghe said that lower mortality rates, longer life expectancy and large youth populations in countries where fertility rates remains high all contributed to the rapid population growth in recent decades.

She also pointed out that adolescents and youth comprise 26 percent of Sri Lankan population and this is the largest population in Sri Lanka’s demographic history. Around 5.6 million young people of the Sri Lankan population, 4 million are schooling and 50, 000 are estimated to be enrolled in higher education.

She stressed that the number of women and child abuse cases and abortions have increased in Sri Lanka due to lack of knowledge. Various programmes will conducted by Health Ministry and awareness programmes also carried out all around the country aiming to provide knowledge on reproductive health including family planning.

She added that the Health Education Bureau in collaboration with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has planned to conduct a campaign to raise awareness of the key issues identified as the most important as the world’s population hits seven billion.

She said that the increase of the elderly population is becoming a major challenge to Sri Lanka. According to the statistics available in Census and Statistics Department have clearly shown that the elderly population above the age groups of 55-59 and 60+ will increase by the year 2021.

She pointed out that there will be some problems such as the increase in non-communicable diseases, increase in female population, increase in mental disorders, rise in accidents, and the growth of elderly population.

The United Nation’s report for this year on population growth shows three children are born throughout the world every second. And it also points out that due to scarcity of food every one person among six in the world is suffering from malnutrition.

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