Philippines fails to reduce infant mortality: ADB

The Philippine government's effort to reduce infant death rate is "discouraging," an Asian Development Bank (ADB) study said, according to local reports on Monday.

The study, titled "Special Evaluation Study: ADB Policy for the Health Sector," said the outlook in the Asia-Pacific region, including the Philippines, regarding attaining the infant mortality rate (IMR) by all developing member countries (DMC) is " discouraging."

"If the current trend continues, the improvement recorded by all DMCs, except Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Samoa, and Singapore, has been insufficient to achieve the MDG (Millennium Development Goal) by 2015," the ADB said.

A recent National Statistics Office (NSO) survey revealed that for every 1,000 births, 29 Filipino children will die before their first birthday, and 40 will die before age five.

"The infant mortality rate in the Philippines is still high compared to other countries in the region--Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia," the NSO said.

A recent ADB study argues that countries would need per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates higher than 6 percent to achieve the MDG target of a 4.3 percent annual reduction in child mortality, and economic growth rates would have to be even higher for those countries that are below target so they can catch up.

For the past years, the Philippines economic growth grew at a range from 4.5 to 5 percent.

The MDGs are based on the United Nations Millennium Declaration endorsed by all 189 United Nations member-states in 2000, including reducing child mortality by two-thirds and reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters. All the goals are time-bound and must be met by 2015.

Source: Xinhua