BY LORRAINE MUROMO THE United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) says Zimbabwe has halved the maternal mortality rate from 960 deaths per 100 000 live births in 2010 to 462 deaths per 100 000 live births in 2019.
In its latest annual report on Zimbabwe’s health sector, Unicef said: “A big achievement for Zimbabwe….under five mortality, meanwhile, also declined significantly in just five years, from 75 to 65 deaths per 1 000 live births between 2014 and 2019.”
However, Unicef expressed concern that the neonatal mortality rate has remained unchanged since 1988 at 31 deaths per 1 000 live births, due to malnutrition, HIV/Aids, pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea.
President of the Zimbabwe Senior Hospital Doctors Association Shingai Nyaguse said although the country had made significant progress, the numbers still remained unsatisfactory.
“We certainly made progress by reducing the maternal mortality rate (MMR) to 462. However, it is still unacceptably high, meaning that childbirth is still dangerous in Zimbabwe. Sustainable Development Goal SDG 3 aims for an MMR of around 70 by 2030,” Nyaguse said.
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