South-East Asia Regional Conference on Epidemiology

66 | <strong>South</strong>-<strong>East</strong> <strong>Asia</strong> <strong>Regional</strong> <strong>Conference</strong> on Epidemiology
mortality, is a problem across the Region. Except a few countries, all the others are struggling to
achieve this goal (Fig. 2). As far as the under-five mortality rate (U5MR) is concerned, only two
countries have it less than 25 per 1000 live births but most others have it over 50 per 1000 live
births (Fig. 3). Substantial progress has been made in reducing child mortality, particularly in terms of
absolute numbers. But, despite these encouraging trends, more efforts are needed to achieve the target
of a 66% reduction from the 1990 levels by 2015. Reducing child mortality increasingly depends on
tackling neonatal mortality. Globally, about 40% of under-five deaths are estimated to occur in the first
month of life, most of them in the first week itself.
Fig. 2: Maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in WHO/SEAR countries, 1990, 2005 and 2015 targets (per 100 000 live births)
Reference year of data for 2005 varies from 2000 to 2005
Source: Country MDG reports
Fig. 3: Under-5 mortality rate in WHO/SEAR countries, 1990 and 2006 (per 1000 live births)
Source: Country reported data
The Inter-Agency Expert Group monitoring the progress of achievement of MDGs has defined that
a 4.2% annual rate of reduction of infant mortality is required to achieve the targets of reduction of