Tanzania has improved in the fight against child and maternal mortality, a recent survey published in a respected UK medical journal, The Lancet says.

According to the survey, which was funded by the Government of Norway, Tanzania's mortality rate in children younger than 5 years dropped by 24 percent over the 5 years between 2000 and 2004.

The country was, as a result of the findings, described as a good example during the just ended Countdown 2015 Conference held in Cape Town, South Africa.

Fellows from the Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, World Health Organisation (WHO) and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania; and their Swiss Tropical counterparts conducted the study, which investigated yearly changes to identify factors behind the reduction.

The research was also aimed at investigating the country's prospects of meeting the Millennium Development Goal for child survival (MDG 4).

Researchers analysed data from the four demographic and health surveys done in Tanzania since 1990 to generate estimates of mortality in children younger than 5 years for every 1-year period before each survey back to 1990.

Estimating trends in mortality between 1990 and 2004 by fitting lowest regression, and using forecasted trends in mortality from 2005 to 2015, the study concluded that the country would achieve the MDG 4 by 2015.

According The Lancet, which was published ahead of the Countdown conference, the study investigated contextual factors, whether part of Tanzania's health system or not, that could have affected child mortality.

Disaggregated estimates showed a sharp acceleration in the reduction in mortality in children younger than 5 years between 2000 and 2004, according to the findings.

"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," the journal noted.

The Lancet is considered to be one of the core independent general medical journals whose coverage is international in focus and extends to all aspects of human life.