Geneva (AHN)-On Thursday the World Health Organization said that the situation for pregnant mothers and babies had worsened since the 1990s in dozens of countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite defying global advances in medicine one woman still dies every minute in pregnancy or childbirth, while each 60 seconds 20 young children are victims to easily preventable disease. WHO officials believe that some countries in Africa could take another 150 years to reach U.N. targets for reducing maternal mortality. Pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles, AIDS and neonatal ailments were the main killers of children under five. The toll includes more than four million newborns who die before they are a month old, but not some 3.3 million stillbirths annually. "The lifetime risk for a woman to lose a newborn baby is now 1 in 5 in Africa, compared with 1 in 125 in more developed countries," the report said. WHO determined that an additional $9 billion is required for each year of the next decade to reach the U.N. Millennium Development Goals of reducing child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters by the target date of 2015 |
