Current situation of child health in Vietnam and interventions to improve health and reduce mortality of children under 5 years old, moving forward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030

Tóm tắt

Review for Millennium Development Goals, Viet Nam was recognised by global community
as a bright spot in achieving the goals of maternal and child health indicators. During 15 year
of MDGs implementation, the mortality rate of children under five years old (U5MR) in Viet Nam
declined by more than 60%, dropping from 58 to 22.1 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990
and 2015 (1).
Despite the Goal 4 to reduce 2/3 of U5MR was still not attained (at 19.3‰), the reduction of
U5MR in Viet Nam was quicker than many other countries. That resulted to the U5MR in Viet Nam
in 2015 was much lower than the global figure (2). That leads to goal to reduce U5MR towards
achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Viet Nam is confirmed
as lower than the global target (22.1‰). The Resolution No. 20 of the Sixth Central Committee
Meeting, Session XII specifies that by 2030, the U5MR must be reduced to less than 15‰ (3).
In order to achieve the goal of reducing U5MR as planned by the Government, Vietnam needs
to make more efforts in terms of both resource investment and professional improvement.
Analyzing the current situation, identifying advantages and disadvantages as well as looking
for opportunities to improve health and reduce U5MR is the right approach to effectively
implement interventions.
This review is carried out with 3 objectives: 1) Situation analysis of U5MR in the beginning
stage of SDGs implementation; 2) Identify challenges and risks to health and child mortality and
3) Describe a number of successful interventions to reduce U5MR and propose for application
and expansion in Viet Nam.