.KABANSHI

By MWANGALA LISELI –

THIRTY eight mothers die each month due to complications of pregnancy or childbirth, Community Development Mother and Child Health Minister Emerine Kabanshi has said.
Ms Kabanshi said Zambia had continued to suffer from high maternal and infant mortality and that reducing child mortality required renewed efforts.
Ms Kabanshi was speaking at the launch of the Helping Mothers Survive Bleeding After Birth (HMSBAB) and Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) roll out programmes in Lusaka yesterday.
The helping Babies Breath project was rolled out to increase coverage by training more nurses and midwives while the HMSBAB was to complement the efforts which are already taking place focusing on managing post-partum haemorrhage.
Ms Kabanshi said according to the 2013 Millennium Development Goals’ report, Zambia still had a long way to go in reducing maternal and infant deaths.
“Although maternal mortality in Zambia has been falling, the decline is insufficient to reach the 2015 target of 162.3 deaths per 100 000 live births,” Ms Kabanshi said.
She said Zambia’s target for infant mortality was to reduce it from 107.2 to 35.7 by the year 2015.
Ms Kabanshi said in last year’s United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), less than five mortality rates had declined by almost 30 per cent since 1992 but was still unacceptably high.
The Midwives Association of Zambia (MAZ) and International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) initiative targets to train 10 000 nurses and midwives in Zambia and Malawi.