UNITED NATIONS, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A new report launched at the UN on Wednesday will likely draw attention of world leaders, particularly those convening at upcoming high-level international meetings, to the continuing problem of maternal and child mortality.
Reducing 1990 levels of mortality of children under-five worldwide by two-thirds and 1990 levels of maternal mortality by three quarters are two of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), numbers 4 and 5, respectively.
MDGs are targets for encouraging international development, set by world leaders at the beginning of the new millennium with the ambition of fulfilling the goals by 2015.
An annual report reviewing progress towards MDGs reveals that outcomes for goals 4 and 5 have been good, but have to be improved much more by 2015. Child mortality rates have dropped from 12.6 million in 1990 to an estimated 8.8 million in 2008, but according to the MDG 2010 report only 10 out of 67 countries with the highest child mortality rates are on track to meet MDG 4 on schedule.
Maternal mortality rate has decreased from 100 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 72 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2008. While this progress is significant, it is short of the rate of a 5. 5 percent reduction in mortality per year that is required in order to accomplish MDG 5 by 2015.
