Efforts to reduce maternal and newborn deaths have stalled since 2015, with more than 60 countries looking set to fall short of their 2030 targets, he warned. World Health Organization report.

The covid-19 pandemic, poverty and worsening humanitarian crises have put even more pressure on countries’ health systems, the WHO said in the report released today.

As of 2015, approximately 290,000 maternal deaths are recorded annually, while 1.9 million infants are stillborn and 2.3 newborns die one month after birth.

A total of one death is recorded every seven seconds “mostly from causes that could have been predicted or treated if appropriate care had been in place,” the WHO said.

More than 190 countries supported a 2014 plan to reduce stillbirths and deaths from predictable causes in newborns. They also set global goals, such as reducing maternal mortality to less than 70 deaths per 100,000 live births.

According to the projections, the progress made by countries must be accelerated in order to achieve these goals, which will save at least 7.8 million lives by 2030.

Progress was faster from 2000 to 2010 than at any other time since then, the report noted. Only 12% of the 106 countries for which data are available fully funded plans to provide health services to pregnant women and newborns.

Also, only 61% of these countries have a system for recording babies who are stillborn.

The 10 countries with the highest rates of maternal mortality, neonatal deaths and stillbirths account for 60% of the global total of these deaths.

India, Nigeria and Pakistan topped the list in 2020.