3/20/06

Millennium Goals 5 & 6: On track?

Goal 5 Improve maternal health
More than half a million women die each year during pregnancy or childbirth. Twenty times that number suffer serious injury or disability. Some progress has been made in reducing maternal deaths in developing regions, but not in the countries where giving birth is most risky.

Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases
AIDS has become the leading cause of premature death in sub-Saharan Africa. In the European countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and parts of Asia, HIV is spreading at an alarming rate. Malaria and tuberculosis together kill nearly as many people each year as AIDS, and represent a severe drain on national economies. Ninety per cent of malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where prevention and treatment efforts are being scaled up. Tuberculosis is on the rise, partly as a result of HIV/AIDS, though a new international protocol to detect and treat the disease is showing promise.

[Source: The Millennium Development Goals Report – 2005]

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