Washington Post: Afghan babies have been dying in huge numbers for decades. Now, something is changing.
“…[A] recent Afghan government survey found that between 2001 and 2015, the nationwide mortality rate for all infants had fallen from 66 to 45 deaths per 1,000 live births, and from 87 to 55 deaths per 1,000 for all children under five years old. … One key to the greater survival rate has been an intensive effort to recruit, train, and deploy thousands of community midwives to rural areas where there are no hospitals or doctors within reach, according to Ferozuddin Feroz, the Afghan minister of public health…” (Constable, 6/24).