Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
Guyana is making very good progress towards reducing child mortality. The country has already met the target of reducing the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015, and aims to further improve its record of reducing child mortality.
Both infant and child mortality have shown decreasing trends over the years. The under-ive mortality rate in Guyana has declined from 120 per 1,000 live births in 1991 to 17 per 1,000 live births in 2008, resulting in early achievement of the MDG target. The decrease is due to successful implementation of nutrition and maternal and child care initiatives, including programmes for comprehensive child immunization coverage, an integrated approach to child health and development and in HIV/AIDS, the Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme.
The above mentioned measures resulted in child immunization coverage reaching above 90 percent for all major vaccinations and across the entire country. Moreover, the proportion of 1 year old children immunized against measles has increased from 89 percent in 1999 to 97 percent in 2009. Finally, HIV/AIDS deaths among children declined from 7.1 percent in 2001 to 1.9 percent in 2008, an accomplishment largely attributable to the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme.
Key government priorities in this area include improving the quality of care of under-one children, especially at and around the time of birth, and improving the nutritional intake of both mothers and children.
The table below shows the targets and indicators for Goal 4.
Table 1: MDG targets and indicators
| Goal 4: Reduce child mortality |
|
| Targets | Indicators for monitoring progress |
| Target 4.A: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate |
4.1 Under-five mortality rate |
