Patchy Progress on Maternal and Child Health in Pakistan

By Ashfaq Yusufzai Reprint | | Print |

PESHAWAR, Dec 28 2012 (IPS) - As the 2015 deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approaches, Pakistan must reckon with its patchy progress on maternal and child health.

About 20,000 women die due to pregnancy-related complications in Pakistan every year, while 3.2 million children under five years of age die of diarrhoea and pneumonia every year, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Six hundred Pakistani children per 100,000 live births die before reaching their fifth birthday. Diarrhoea and pneumonia account for 76 of those deaths per 100.000 live births, or 11 percent and 13 percent of childhood deaths in Pakistan, respectively.

What’s more, the polio virus continues to plague Pakistan — particularly the northern provinces, which face the added burden of the Taliban’s militancy.