Kampala — Unlike Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi which are doing badly, Tanzania could attain the Millennium Development Goal for child survival (MDG 4) if its trend of improved child survival are sustained.

This is according to the 2008 Countdown report which comes at the midpoint for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015. The report, which was contained in the UK published Lancet medical journal of last week, focused on the 2008 results of the Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Survival initiative.

The report indicates that Tanzania reported that mortality in children younger than five years dropped by 24 per cent over five years between 2000 and 2004. It was a change from 141 to 83 per 1000 live births. On how Tanzania has succeeded, the report says, "Between 1999 and 2004, we noted important improvements in Tanzania's health system, including doubled public expenditure on health; decentralisation and sector-wide basket funding; and increased coverage of key child-survival interventions, such as integrated management of childhood illness, insecticide-treated nets, vitamin A supplementation, immunisation, and exclusive breastfeeding."

For Uganda, the report shows that mortality in children younger than five years reduced slightly from 160 in 1990 to 134 in 2006. Yet to reach the MDG 4 target for 2015, the mortality has to go down to 54 for every 1,000 children born alive. This would therefore require a 10.2 per cent reduction rate between now and 2015 if the target is to be met. Kenya registered no progress as the mortality rose from 97 to 121 in the same period. Rwanda registered a slight decline from 176 to 160, while Burundi made little progress as it could only manage a slim reduction from 190 to 181.

An editorial in the Lancet concluded that children and mothers are dying because those who have the power to prevent their deaths choose not to act. "This indifference -by politicians, policy makers, donors, research funders, and civil society - is a betrayal of our collective hope for a stronger and more just society, one that values every life no matter how young or hidden from public view that life might be," the report reads in part.