The rate of infant mortality in The Gambia was 58 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011, with an under-five mortality rate of 101 deaths per 1,000 live births. As shown in Graph 1, there has been a consistent decline in the under-five mortality rate since 1990. While this decline is encouraging, under-five mortality rate has not yet reached the country’s target of 55 deaths per 1,000 live births, as defined by Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4). In 2010 the three most prominent causes of death for children below the age of five years were malaria (20%), pneumonia (15%) and prematurity (14%).
Other contributory causes were birth asphyxia (10%), diarrhoea (9%) and congenital anomalies (6%). In the period 2007-11 The Gambia reported a maternal mortality ratio of 730 deaths per 100,000 live births (the figure was estimated at 360 deaths per 100,000 by UN agencies/World Bank in 2010).
