The World Health Organization (WHO) has commended the Malawi government through ministry of health for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4. Reducing under-5 mortality rates by two thirds between 1990 and 2015.
The country’s child survival progress has been measured through Countdown to 2015 which calls on governments and development partners to be accountable, identifies knowledge gaps and proposes new actions to improve health and reduce mortality.
Countdown’s data and analysis cover 75 countries that account for over 95% of all maternal and child deaths such that the annual Countdown to 2015 country profile enables countries to track their progress and identify key areas where more progress is needed.
Countdown supports in-depth Country Case Studies that seek to understand and explain how progress on women’s and children’s health was achieved by strengthening country-level capacity to conduct this research, Countdown aims to build a portfolio of studies that assess multiple outcomes across the continuum of care, and that includes attention to success stories as well as areas where progress was not made, and analyse the reasons.
Although Malawi’s population of about 30 percent lives in abject poverty, it has imaged as one of the successful Sub Saharan Africa countries on track to achieve MDGs 4.
A team of national and international researchers led by Malawi National Statistics Office (NSO) conducted an in depth Countdown Country Case Study whose findings were launched on Monday, July 27, 2015 in the capital Lilongwe which revealed the nation’s progress by achieving MDG 4 before September 2015 timeline.
Dr. Eugine Nyarko, WHO Representative to United Nations (UN) expressed gratitude on the country’s zeal and efforts to score a credit in achieving the MDG 4 though with low health services delivery mostly in rural areas.
“Malawi has become a global star on reducing under-five mortality rates by two thirds even before we reach the September 2015 timeline. This is remarkable achievement regarding to poor health facilities used to serve the rural populace.
“The work still remains high on maternal mortality rate. Be assured of our material, technical and financial support that the rest of the MDGs are attained as soon as possible though expected to unable meeting the deadline of September this year when all countries will evaluate their achievements”, assures Dr Nyarko.
Douglas Arbuckle, USAID Representative collaborated the same sentiments with WHO made saying their resources were put in good use that there would be more support for continual with the remaining targets.
Malawi Health Minister Dr Jean Kalirani attributed the achievement of meeting MDG 4 to collaboration with other private health organizations including PACH (MamaYe), Save the Children, Mai Nkhanda, NONM among others saying more effort is needed to reduce maternal mortality rate which was still high.
Later The Maravi Post caught with Juliana Linguzi, Chairperson for Parliamentary Committee on health who shared the same sentiments, she emphasized the need for proper use of funding towards reaching the rural masses with practical health service delivery than spending huge sum of money on clothing, conferences, and workshops among others.
“Achieving MDG 4 at this time is awesome for all of us to be proud of but now the emphasis must be on service delivery. Let’s channel funds meant for workshops, conferences, launches, clothing to drugs, health equipments in improving health service delivery”, challenges Linguzi.
Since 1990 till 2015,Malawi has rescued over 280, 000 under-five children from deaths but about 14, 000 new born babies are still dying yearly which according to health experts the figure was high needed urgent attention.
