Plans for the late 1960s and 1970 called for 23 to 25 percent of the state budget to be spent on social and cultural sectors. In 1967, when total planned budget spending was 3.6 billion leks (5 leks equal US$1—see Glossary), the sum for social and cultural sectors was 837 million leks, of which 189 million were for health, 167 million for social insurance, 143 million for assistance to mothers and children, and 338 million for education and culture.
The government maintained that it was improving living conditions by increasing food supplies and commodities and by construction of public facilities and structures. In February 1970 the chairman of the State Planning Commission reported that 1,200 dining rooms, 1,140 bakeries, 1,850 public baths and laundries, and 187 water mains had been built and that electricity had been supplied to 1,096 additional villages in 1968 and 1969, leaving only 663 without electricity. Although these additions added to the amenities of life, the rapid growth of population caused heavy strain on the very limited total resources available.
Medical authorities asserted that many diseases and afflictions that had taken heavy tolls of life and tended to debilitate large segments of the population before 1950 had been greatly reduced or eliminated. These successes were primarily attributable to large-scale inoculation programs, elimination or reduction in the number of disease-spreading pests, and expansion of health services. Malnutrition, unsatisfactory sanitary-hygienic conditions, and indifference to medical aid in some areas posed problems for further improvements.
The Communist regime, posing as the protector of the masses, credited itself with a revolutionary transformation in the health standards of the country. Data on health and disease from other than Albanian sources were not available. Statistics released by the Ministry of Health indicated substantial improvements during the 1960s. Responsibility for shortcomings and inadequacies relating to health care was attributed to backwardness on the part of the people or to the lack of resources. Failures on the part of the Party or government were not mentioned.
There were widespread epidemics of measles in 1948 and 1949 and 1954 and 1955, of Asiatic influenza in 1957, of typhoid in 1945 and 1950, and of poliomyelitis in 1953. Health officials stated that there were no epidemics during the 1960s.
Malaria was one of the most prevalent diseases before 1950. Health authorities, assisted by the Rockefeller Foundation beginning in the 1920s, made considerable progress in eliminating mosquitoes and reducing the incidence of malaria before World War II. The campaign was continued by the Italians during their occupation. The ravages of war greatly increased the spread of malaria from 1945 to 1947; according to Communist reports, 60 to 70 percent of the population were afflicted in those years, in comparison with 16.5 percent in 1938.
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration provided food, medicine, and antimalarial assistance in 1945 and 1946, and the Communist regime followed up with a concerted effort against the disease, which reduced the percentage of persons afflicted to approximately 7 percent in the early 1950s. Health officials declared in 1970 that malaria had been eradicated by 1967, and no cases had been recorded after that date.
Health authorities reported that measles had been eliminated by 1970 through a program of mass vaccinations. The last major epidemic, that of 1954-55, afflicted almost 14 percent of the population. The incidence among children under three years of age was 60 percent, and 1,712 children under age fifteen died.
A broad program against tuberculosis was begun in the 1960s that included general prophylactic measures and vaccine injections. Health officials planned completion of vaccinations countrywide in 1970. It was estimated that almost 15 percent of the population had tuberculosis in the mid-1950s. Officials reported that the incidence of this disease had dropped to less than 0.2 percent in 1968.