As gov't scrambles to save lives, achieve Millennium Development Goals

P8.2B set to fight infant, maternal mortality

Press Release
September 15, 2010

QUEZON CITY  –  Government is spending a total of P8.2 billion next year to aggressively fight infant and maternal mortality, and achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ahead of the 2015 deadline.

Some P5.7 billion will be spent to put up a total of 1,278 Basic and Comprehensive Emergency Obstetrics and Newborn Care Facilities countrywide, according to House Deputy Majority Leader and Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo.

The facilities are meant to significantly minimize the number of newborns and women lost due to childbirth-related and pregnancy complications, Romulo said.

Meanwhile, Romulo said another P2.5 billion has been earmarked to vaccinate up to 2.6 million children against measles, neonatal tetanus, Hepatitis B, and hemophilis influenza type B.

He said the amount is 152 percent greater than this year's P991-million allotment for the Expanded Immunization Program.

The allocations for the new facilities and the inoculation plan are contained in the proposed General Appropriations Act of 2011, Romulo said.

"With or without the MDGs, we have to put in check the unacceptably high number of infants and mothers that we are losing on account of childbirth-related and pregnancy difficulties that are, in most cases, preventable, if not manageable," Romulo said.

President Aquino is set to attend the September 20 to 22 United Nations (UN) summit in New York, where he is expected to report the country's advances toward achieving the MDGs.

The MDGs are eight goals that 189 member-countries of the UN pledged to attain by 2015. Two of the goals are to reduce child mortality and to improve maternal health care.

The specific targets include lessening by two-thirds the child mortality rate, immunizing all 1-year-old children against measles, and lessening by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio.

According to the National Statistics Office's MDG Watch, the Philippines managed to reduce the "under-5 child mortality rate" from 80 to 33.5 per 1,000 live births from 1990 to 2008. The target is 26.7 per 1,000 live births by 2015.

From 1990 to 2008, the country also lowered the "infant or under-1 mortality rate" from 57 to 24.9 per 1,000 live births. The target is 19 per 1,000 live births by 2015.

Over the same period, the country likewise increased the immunization rate of 1-year-old children from 77.9 to 79.2 percent. The target is 100 percent by 2015.