MDGs: 'Have We Reached an Impasse?' — WHO

Dr Margaret Chan, World Health Organisation director-general, examines current progress in achieving health-related Millennium Development Goals. In a speech delivered in April this year in Denmark, Chan noted that healthy systems tasked to "make interventions available, accessible and utilised" is in a crisis and urged them to "use the best strategies available" before it is too late.

"You have asked me to speak about WHO’s efforts to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals. I am happy to express some of my views.

First, some good news. Last year, with support from the GAVI Alliance, childhood immunisation coverage reached record highs. In sub-Saharan Africa, deaths from measles have dropped by 75 percent over the past six years.

Immunisation lends itself to a systematic approach. These interventions can be scheduled. Other major causes of childhood mortality cannot be so easily prevented with a scheduled intervention. We are not seeing similar progress in preventing deaths from diarrhoeal disease and pneumonia.

Rates of maternal mortality remain stubbornly and tragically high despite more than two decades of efforts. There are some indications that rates are actually climbing in sub-Saharan Africa. At least 70 percent of preventable maternal deaths arise from complications of childbirth, and these complications cannot be reliably predicted.

We will not see the annual total of more than half a million maternal deaths go down until more women have access to emergency obstetric care.

HIV/AIDS has become a disease of the developing world, with its greatest burden on the African people. Of people living with this disease, 95 percent reside in the developing world. Of the 4.3 million new infections in 2006, 65percent occurred in sub-Saharan Africa.

Click here for more: http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2007/100407_mdg/en/index.html.