Cambodia sees remarkable drop in maternal, child mortalities: health official

PHNOM PENH (Xinhua): Cambodia has seen a significant drop in maternal and child mortalities in the last seven years from 2014 to 2021, Health Ministry's Secretary of State Youk Sambath said on Thursday (Sept 15).

"Maternal deaths had declined to 154 per 100,000 live births in 2021 from 170 in 2014, while there were eight child mortalities per 1,000 live births last year, down from 18 in 2014," she told a press conference.

Sambath said that during the last five years, some 1.41 million mothers delivered their babies at health facilities across the South-East Asian nation.

She added that children aged under one year old had received 11 kinds of vaccines to prevent the diseases of tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, hepatitis B, meningitis, pneumonia and rubella, etc.

The official said 95 percent of the infants had been fully vaccinated with these vaccines, and that Cambodia had successfully eliminated polio and measles in 2000 and 2015, respectively.