VN makes progress in reducing child fatalities
VGP - Viet Nam has been remarkably reducing the mortality rate of under 5 kids from 66 fatalities per 1,000 births in 2000, to 16 in 2011, according to the 2012 UNICEF Progress Report on Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed.
UNICEF’s representative in Viet Nam, Lotta Sylwander, said on September 14 that the Vietnamese Government has stuck to its commitment to protect children’s lives.
Extra investment for safeguarding children’s lives in the first few years of their life has helped reduce the mortality rate and is in society’s long-term interests, she said.
According to the report, children are more at risk of dying before the age of five if they are born in poor rural areas.
In Viet Nam, the biggest reasons for child mortality are hereditary diseases and factors relating to prenatal care, Sylwander said, adding that more than 50 percent of fatalities in under 5 kids happen during the first 28 days of their life. Other notorious killers are pneumonia and diarrhoea.
The report also shows that the rate of fatalities in under 5’s has fallen sharply in every region and country in the world.
Low-income countries, including Bangladesh, Liberia and Rwanda, middle-income countries such as Brazil, Mongolia and Turkey and high-income countries, like Oman and Portugal all made progress, with fatalities in under 5’s dropping by nearly two thirds between 1990-2011.-VNA
