Despite reducing maternal mortality by almost 50 per cent between 1990 and 2015, the world has fallen well short of the target of a 75 per cent reduction that appe-ared in the Millennium Development G
Despite reducing maternal mortality by almost 50 per cent between 1990 and 2015, the world has fallen well short of the target of a 75 per cent reduction that appe-ared in the Millennium Development Goals.
According to the Lancet, global MMR fell from approximately 385 deaths per 1,00,000 in 1990, to 216 in 2015, corresponding to a relative decline of 44 per cent, with an estimated 303000 maternal deaths worldwide in 2015. “This was only just over half way to the MDG target of a 75 per cent reduction,” it said.
The experts noted that an accelerated progress will be needed to achieve the Sustainable Developm-ent Goal (SDG) in 2030; countries will need to reduce their MMRs at an annual rate of reduction of at least 7.5 per cent.
In the next 15 years, 3.9 million women will die from a maternal cause of death if each country continues to reduce its MMR at the present rate of 2.9 per cent, which was the median annual reduction observed for 2000-10.
Achieving the SDG target would result in a total number of projected cum-ulative deaths between 2016 and 2030 of no more than 2.5 million, 1.4 million lower than is expected based on present rates of change. The progress on the basis of reductions in the maternal mortality ratio, the number of maternal deaths per 1,00,000 live births. The authors estimated trends in maternal mortality for 183 countries from 1990 to 2015.
Experts noted that while success stories reaching the 75 per cent reduction target were rare, with only 9 countries achieving this including — Bhutan, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Iran, Laos, the Maldives, Mong-olia, Rwanda, and Timor-Leste. However, only 10 countries were found to have an MMR of 5 or less in 2015 which includes Austria, Belarus, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Kuwait, Poland, and Sweden.
On the other hand some 20 countries, all in sub-Saharan Africa, were estimated to have MMRs of more than 500 in 2015.
It was found that global progress in reducing the MMR since 1990 saw an annual rate of reduction of 2.3% globally, while regionally progress varied from an annual reduction of 1.8% in the Caribbean to 5% in eastern Asia. Regional MMRs for 2015 ranged from 12 deaths per 100000 livebirths for developed regions to 546 deaths per 100000 livebirths for sub-Saharan Africa.
The authors say that, with the vision of ending preventable maternal deaths and the mission to reduce the global MMR to 70 deaths per 100 000 in the next 15 years, urgent action is needed to accelerate progress, particularly in countries with substantial maternal mortality.
