Report: Most Countries Will Not Meet MDGs 4 and 5

With maternal mortality estimates published last year by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the United Nations, and the recent neonatal mortality estimates, it became relatively clear that most countries would not meet the ambitions set in Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. A new report from IHME, published in The Lancet, confirms that few countries are on track:

An estimated 31 developing countries will achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4, which calls for a two-thirds reduction in the child mortality rate between 1990 and 2015, and 13 developing countries will achieve MDG 5, which calls for a three-fourths reduction in the maternal mortality ratio over the same period. Of those countries, nine will achieve both goals: China, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Maldives, Mongolia, Peru, Syria, and Tunisia.

Although many countries will not meet the lofty goals set in 2000, progress has been made in many countries, especially recently, that should allow us to still be optimistic about maternal and child health.

The report continues:

In 125 countries, maternal mortality has declined faster since 2000, the year that countries signed the Millennium Declaration, promising to make improvements in child and maternal health, and the progress has been particularly strong in the past five years. Over the same period, in 106 countries, child mortality rates have declined faster between 2000 and 2011 than in the previous decade.