Millennium Development Goal 4

Reduce child mortality
-          The challenge is to increase planned parenting including birth timing, birth spacing and completion of child bearing through effective public health. Infant and child mortality is high because of by fatal diseases, notably malaria, and birth complications.

Target 5: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

13. Under-five mortality rate (CMR)  1990:  36               1999:  73

• The rate for 1990 (2003 HDR) seems low and is probably the result of incomplete death registration information while the rate for 1999 is more realistic (Census)

14. Infant mortality rate (IMR)  1989:  96         1999:  66

• The IMR is declining steadily, and if the trend continues the Solomon Islands is on track to achieve the MDG target of 32 by 2015. 

15. Proportion of 1 year-old children immunized against measles, percent  1989:  92%    1995:  68%           2000:  77% (1990 Epidemiological Report, SB HDR 2002)

• Immunization rates were high in the late 1980s, declining in the mid-90s and improving in the year 2000