World health statistics 2013

Overview

More than a decade after world leaders adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated targets substantial progress has been made in reducing child and maternal mortality, improving nutrition, and reducing morbidity and mortality due to HIV infection, tuberculosis and malaria.

Although progress has accelerated in recent years in many countries with the highest rates of mortality, large gaps persist both among and within countries. Nevertheless, current trends continue to provide a sound basis for intensified collective action and the expansion of successful approaches to overcome the challenges posed by multiple crises and large inequalities.

At national level, 27 diverse countries have reached the MDG target ahead of 2015, including five countries that had very high child-mortality levels in 1990.3 This suggests that rapid improvements are possible in a range of settings that vary in terms of their geographical characteristics, level of economic and social development, population size and epidemiological patterns. Of the 10 countries that experienced the fastest acceleration in the reduction of child mortality, seven had reversed the trend of an increasing under-five mortality rate in the 1990s to a rapid decline in the past decade.