Maternal deaths are ‘still a major challenge’
Women and their newborns at Mwananyamala Hospital in Dar es Salaam. The UN says more needs to be done to provide care for pregnant mothers in the country. PHOTO | FILE
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And the World Health Organisation (WHO) reports that 99 per cent of maternal deaths occur in developing countries, most often in women living in rural areas or in poor communities.
Arusha. A woman in sub-Saharan Africa has one in 16 chances of dying during pregnancy or childbirth compared with one in 4,000 in a developed country, according to Unicef estimates.
And the World Health Organisation (WHO) reports that 99 per cent of maternal deaths occur in developing countries, most often in women living in rural areas or in poor communities.
“This problem is still critical in Africa” said Arumeru District Commissioner Wilson Nkhambaku on Friday when unveiling a programme on the impact of digital technologies on health care services at the Nelson Mandela University.
He said around the world, more than 800 women die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.
The United Nations in its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report 2014 recorded almost 300,000 deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth complications.
That is despite the decline of maternal mortality by 45 per cent between 1990 and 2013 from 380 to 210 deaths.
The report further indicated that maternal death is mostly preventable and much more needs to be done to provide care for pregnant women as outlined in the recently-released Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“For Africa, however, this challenge is paramount,” the DC said, calling for collaboration and building up of a pan-African network of passionate scientists, engineers and technologists “ready to confront head on the pervasive problem of maternal deaths”.
The African Grand Challenge launched on Friday was hatched by the Nelson Mandela University, also known as Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) and its first phase has involved 24 participants from the five universities in Africa under the network of science and technology learning centres whose estabolishment was initiated by the anti apartheid icon.
The NM-AIST Vice Chancellor, Prof Burton Mwamila, said the programme is yet another innovative measure taken to promote techno-entrepreneurship in the continent and that maternal mortality was picked as a study case due to the gravity of the situation in Africa.
The 24 young scientists from 10 countries, including Tanzania, are set to compete in divising better ways to improve the health care services for women and their families through the application of digital technologies.
“This is one of the measures in which we can transform Africa through the application of science and technology,” he said. The five universities under the network of Africa centres of technology proposed by the late South African leader are in Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa, among others. The programme is facilitated by the visiting Prof John Henderson from the Boston University in the United States. “My role is to help the institute identify ways to reduce maternal mortality,” he told The Citizen.
He called on the African countries to invest heavily in science and technology through the network of institutions envisioned by the late Nelson Mandela.
Maternal mortality has been a matter of concern to policy-makers within the East African Community (EAC) bloc, often times painting a grim picture on human development index in the region.
Statistics on trends in maternal mortality by the World Bank, Unicef, WHO and UNFPA released two years ago puts the under five mortality rate per 1,000 live births for Burundi at 142.
