Improvements in immediate newborn care and interventions that target common killers like birth asphyxia offered in communities and rural health facilities can dramatically change the number of babies surviving their first month of life, said experts speaking at a seminar on strategies to improve newborn survival.
The seminar was hosted by Aga Khan University and Save the Children, an international NGO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health’s National Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Programme and National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health Care.
“Newborn mortality rates in Pakistan are amongst the highest in Asia with the lowest rate of reduction. Within the newborn period, asphyxia, prematurity and sepsis account for almost 90 per cent of all deaths,” said Dr Zulfiqar Bhutta, Head, Division of Women and Child Health, AKU. This makes achieving the Millennium Development Goal 4, to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015, quite challenging.
via ‘Newborn mortality rate in Pakistan highest in Asia’ – TheNews.
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