Efforts continue to reduce mother and child mortality rates

These two goals will continue to be included in the country’s other sustainable development goals in the next 15 years. According to the latest report from the Ministry of Industry and Trade on Vietnam’s implementation of MDGs, the mortality rate of children under 5 has reduced from 58 per 1,000 to 2.4 per 1,000 between 1999 and 2014.

This rate of children under 1 also also fell from 44.4 per 1,000 to 1.49 per thousand. The number of deaths recorded during maternity decreased from 233 to 69 cases per 100 thousand cases. These positive results have been praised by the United Nations.

Pratibha Mehta, UN Resident Co-ordinator, UNDP Resident Representative, said: "Health care for mothers and children has been identified as one of the top priority tasks of Vietnam’s national health care. Vietnam has implemented a series of action plans on expanding immunisation, family planning, reproductive health care, and improving infrastructures for local medical clinics".

Assoc. Prof. Luu Thi Hong, Director of Department of Mother and Child Health Protection, Ministry of Health, said: "The Ministry of Health has implemented a number of projects to reduce overcrowding at hospitals, and provide hands-on training to local clinics, especially those in remote areas".

Despite these efforts and positive results, there remains a number of challenges. The most notable being the big difference in the goal completion rates between regions and population groups.

The United Nations Summit recently held in New York has adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in which, reducing the mortality rate of mothers and children continue to be two important goals.

The UN Co-ordinator has claimed that Vietnam’s experience gained over the past 15 years will help the country will fulfil these two goals in the future.