UNICEF and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention joint study in Afghanistan.

• Tenlastelegging: Maternal and infant mortality research

An Afghan woman dies in childbirth every 20 minutes according to a report, launched on November 6, 2002, showing a death rate almost 200 times higher than that of the USA. The joint study by UNICEF and the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about 1,600 of every 100,000 Afghan women die giving birth. In addition, 75% of the babies born to those mothers die themselves within the first year of life, mostly from malnutrition due to lack of breastmilk.

The study covered four areas of Afghanistan, including the remote north-eastern province of Badakshan, where the rate of 6,500 maternal deaths, for every 100,000 live births is `the highest ever reported in the world', according to Dr Linda Bartlett of the CDC. Most of the deaths are preventable, the report said, noting that dying in childbirth accounts for nearly half the deaths among young women. Of the deaths, at...