UZBEKISTAN: Infant mortality rate decreasing - UNICEF

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

TASHKENT, 13 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - The rate of infant mortality is decreasing in Uzbekistan, with more than 1,000 newborns saved every year since 2000 in the most populous Central Asian country.

At a conference in Tashkent to mark the end of the 2000-2004 country programme, UNICEF's head of mission, Brenda Vigo, told IRIN that "one of the achievements of the CPC for 2000-2004 is that infant and maternal mortality has decreased".

"The indicators of infant mortality have decreased in the country, which is one of the major results of the implementation of the CPC," Tanzila Norbaeva, head of the secretariat on social protection for family, motherhood and childhood under the Uzbek government, said, echoing Vigo's remarks.

According to the Uzbek National Statistics Commission, the under-one infant mortality rate in the country was 18.7 per 1,000 live births in 2000, while in 2004 that figure went down to 16.5 per 1,000 live births. The population of Uzbekistan is almost 26 million.

"Although it doesn't look like a huge reduction, one has to bear in mind that more than 500,000 children are born every year in Uzbekistan and this suggests that more than 1,100 children's lives are saved every year," an Uzbek health official told IRIN.

However, Vigo said that those figures were based on the Soviet definition of live births, which resulted in lower rates. A survey conducted in 2000 using the universal World Health Organization (WHO) definition of live births revealed that a more representative infant mortality rate was 52 per 1,000 live births.

The substantial difference is largely due to the discrepancy between the currently used and international standard definition of "live birth" and to under-reporting, UNICEF said.

Infant deaths in the perinatal period accounted for 32.7 percent and according to the recent casual analysis of infant deaths conducted by UNICEF in 2002, 50 percent of newborns who died were born at full term and appropriate to the gestational age weight, which indicated a low quality of available care.

But on a more positive note, a pilot project aimed at introducing WHO standards of live births is now under way in the eastern Ferghana province and the results could be used for the development of government policy on the issue, Vigo added.

[ENDS]