Infant mortality in Maldives was nine deaths per 1,000 live births in 2012, with an under-five mortality rate of 11 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. This decline is impressive and has seen the country exceed its target of 31 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 congenital anomalies (30 per cent), prematurity (17 per cent) and birth asphyxia (15 per cent). Other contributory causes were pneumonia (11 per cent), neonatal sepsis (four per cent) and diarrhoea (three per cent). In the period 2007-11 Maldives had a reported maternal mortality ratio of 140 deaths per 100,000 live births (this figure was estimated at 60 deaths per 100,000 by UN agencies/World Bank in 2010).
