Friday, 4 April 2008

Maternal morality rate remains high in Cambodia

chinaview.cn
2008-04-04

PHNOM PENH, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Official survey has shown that the maternal morality rate remained high in the last five years, while childhood morality rate dropped by 6 percent each year, English-Khmer newspaper the Mekong Times said on Friday.

The number of women who died giving birth is estimated at around 472 per 100,000 live births from 2000 to 2005, Eng Huot, secretary of state at Ministry of Health, was quoted as telling the 29th annual national health conference here on Thursday.

"We have seen that, on average, the childhood morality rate has dropped by 6 percent per year, but the maternal morality rate is not dropping. It remains high," he said.

He didn't elaborate on the reason. The paper quoted opposition lawmakers as saying that the budget prioritized for this sector was largely not being used.

Cambodia, with a weak health sector, has for years been making efforts to reduce maternal and childhood death rates.

In 2008, the National Assembly approved a budget of some 101 million U.S. dollars for the health sector, around 20 percent more than 2007, in order to improve the sector to a standard comparable to the other countries in the region.

Editor: Sun Yunlong

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