With 98 per cent of women having visited doctors at least once in their recent pregnancy, Fiji has the highest coverage of ante-natal care in the region.
Economy Ministry permanent secretary Shiri Gounder said this at the launch of the inaugural Fiji Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2021 in Suva yesterday.
“In terms of neo-natal mortality rate, the probability of dying in the first month after birth and also the mortality under the age of five, Fiji has already achieved the SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) target,” he said.
“For neo-natal death rate, Fiji has seven deaths per 100 and the SDG target I understand is 12 deaths per thousand, so we have already achieved that target.
“So this is also something that is useful for all those agencies involved in neo-natal care and care of women.”
According to a snapshot of the survey, Fiji has achieved SDG 2030 target of reaching below 12 deaths per 1000 live births for neonatal mortality rate (NMR) and 25 deaths per 1000 live births for under-five mortality rate (U5MR).
The MICS is an international household survey developed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and covers the largest number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) among major household surveys.
The inaugural Fiji MICS covered 6000 households and was conducted by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics and Health Ministry with technical support from UNICEF from March to April 2021.
