progress in reducing deaths during pregnancy and childbirth and among newborns has stalled since 2015, and more than 60 countries are on track to meet the 2030 targets at current rates, a World Health Organization report released Tuesday found.
The COVID-19 pandemic, poverty and worsening humanitarian crises have strained already overburdened health systems, the UN agency said in a statement.
The report said that since 2015 there have been around 290,000 maternal deaths, 1.9 million stillbirths and 2.3 million neonatal deaths within a month of birth.
The combined total represents one death every seven seconds, “mostly from preventable or treatable causes if appropriate care was available,” the WHO said.
How can the problem be solved?
countries need to grow investment in primary care to see different outcomes, said Anshu Banerjee, WHO director on maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and ageing.
More than 190 countries endorsed a plan to cut the rate of stillbirths and preventable deaths among infants in 2014, and later set a global target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births .
According to the report, the projections indicate a need to accelerate progress to meet those targets, which could help save at least 7.8 million lives by 2030 if met.
Progress was faster than at any other time between 2000 and 2010, with the report attributing the primary reason to a lack of funding. Only 12 per cent of the 106 reporting countries have fully funded maternal and newborn health plans, the report said.
The report also found that only 61% of reporting countries have systems in place to track stillbirths.
The report found that with 10 countries highest maternal mortality, stillbirth and neonatal death It accounts for 60% of all such deaths globally.
As per the report, India, Nigeria and Pakistan led that list in 2020.