UN official praises Vietnam’s child healthcare achievements
Vietnam has made many laudable achievements in improving children’s health and living quality, especially in reducing the under-five child mortality rate, a United Nations official said Thursday. 
Vietnam “has certainly paid quite a lot of attention to the work for child survival, including maternal and infant health,” Senior Program Coordinator Maniza S. Zaman of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Vietnam said.
“Big strides have been made in reducing infant mortality and under-five mortality rate,” she told Vietnam News Agency on the sidelines of a two-day workshop on the Regional Child Survival Strategy held in Hanoi on August 30-31.
Vietnam’s infant mortality rate has been reduced from above 40-45 per thousand in 1998 to about 20 per thousand. Similarly, the under-five mortality rate has been reduced from 69 per thousand to 30.
Maniza also praised Vietnam for “more gains,” including polio eradication in 2000, the maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination in 2005, and its recent achievement of the universal iodinization program whereby over 90 percent of Vietnamese people are using iodized salt.
The other important success Vietnam had made was the universal immunization coverage in 1990.
In regards to the possibility that Vietnam could achieve the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015, Maniza said, “ Vietnam is totally on track to reach the MDGs on child issues. We have all the reasons to believe that Vietnam will reach them.”
However, she also warned of the risks that disparities in economic development among different regions in the country, which could lead to inequitable access to health and nutrition care and services, would put more challenges to the improvement of children’s living conditions and health.
The UN coordinator said that UNICEF pledges to continue to support Vietnam.
The Regional Child Survival Strategy was jointly developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF) for the East Asia and Pacific region
Source: VNA
