Setting research priorities to reduce almost one million deaths from birth Asphyxia by 2015

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ratified by almost every country in the world, have catalyzed policy attention and investment for child survival (MDG 4) and maternal health MDG 5. MDG 4 aims for a two-thirds reduction in deaths of children under 5 years of age between 1990 and 2015. Despite almost no progress for MDG 4 on a global level during the 1990s, there has been increasingly rapid progress with several recent landmark achievements since about 2005. The number of child deaths has been reduced to about 8 million per year, despite the continuing increase in the global child population and a number of low-income countries are now on track for the goal [3]. On the African continent, which has had the slowest progress, several countries have moved from the “no progress” to the “rapid progress” group, and two low-income African countries (Eritrea and Malawi) are on track to achieve their MDG 4 goal.