community.46Considerable progress has been made to improve the provision of health services during the past two decades. With regard to mobilizing communities for the provision of the health extension package, the primary focus has been directed towards women groups. As part of the initiative to assign two health extension workers (HEW) per rural Kebele, a total of 34,604 health extension workers were deployed across the country in 2011/12. In the effort to scaling up the implementation of the health extension package, a “Health Development Army” composed mainly women of was established to work together with Health extension workers. These community-level volunteers are trained by the health extension workers to focus more intensively on increasing local behavior changes. Pentavalent 3 vaccine coverage has increased from 82%in 2009/10 to 84.7% in 2010/11 and full immunization infant coverage has been increased from 72.3%in 2009/10 to 74.5% in 2010/11.47 To date, there has been a linear increase in Health Posts (HP) and Health Centers (HC). During 2010-2012/13 the number of health posts constructed was 903; 573; and 380, respectively; providing a total of 1856 for the three years. This brought the total number of health posts to 16,048 in 2012/13. This performance has improved HP/population ratio to 1:5352. The target for 2014/15 is 1:5,000. Expansion of HC also plays a pivotal role for the achievement of universal primary health coverage. Through the joint efforts of Federal government and the Regions in this period, the number of HCs constructed was 518; 339 and 101 respectively-a total of 958 for the three years. This has brought the total number of functional health centers to 3,100 in 2012/13. One health center currently (2012/13) provides services to a population of 27,706, down from 1:37,299 in 2009/10. Full coverage of basic health services requires a total of 3,300 HCs at the end of the GTP. HC to population ratio is targeted to fall to 1:25,000 by 2014/15. These advances have meant that primary health coverage increased from 92.1 percent in 2010/11 to 92.9 percent in 2011/12 and to 93.4 percent in 2012/13. Progress has also been made in increasing the number of hospitals from 122 in 2010/11, to 125 in 2011/12 and to 127 in 2012/13.48 In order to reduce the maternal and child mortality rates, the government devised various strategies, packages and action plans that have helped to ensure the achievement of the MDGs for the reduction of child and maternal mortality rates. In this regard the antenatal care provided for mothers has increased from 31% in 2009/10 to 97.4% in 2012/13. The post-natal service coverage The GTP report Page 91 Ministry of Health Report 48 GTP report 2012/13 report p. 73 and 75 46 47 81