Public health strategies to fasten the achievement of the millennium development goal -4A related to under-five mortality

Year 2015, Volume: 5 Issue: 1, 67 - 70, 04.03.2015

Saurabh Shrivastava , Prateek Shrivastava Jegadeesh Ramasamy

https://doi.org/10.16899/ctd.61836

Abstract

Under-five mortality rate (U5MR) refers to the total number of deaths in the age group of 0-5 years divided by the total number of live births in the same time interval. Under the MDG-4A, the target was to reduce U5MR by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015. An extensive search of all materials related to the topic was made using library sources including Pubmed, Medline and google scholar searches. Keywords used in the search include under-five mortality rate, Millennium development goals, and global. Although, reduction in U5MR has been observed, the decline is neither sufficient nor uniform, being highest in the African region and least in the European continent. Multiple barriers and gaps have been identified that are eventually aggravating the magnitude of the under-five mortality. In order to reduce the global burden of under-five mortality and to counter the identified challenges, there is a need of formulating innovative, cost-effective, multi-faceted and targeted strategies to address the problem in all dimensions. To conclude, there is a crucial need to save lives of under-five children by ensuring strategic implementation of comprehensive and target-oriented strategies, especially in developing countries to universally achieve the millennium development goal-4A.

Keywords

Under-five mortality rate, Millennium development goals, Global, Policy

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