[00:00.10]From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.82]this is the Health Report.
[00:05.32]The United Nations Children's Fund
[00:08.44]is praising Ethiopia for reaching one of
[00:12.15]the Millennium Development Goals on child survival.
[00:16.36]UNICEF officials say Ethiopia has reduced
[00:21.18]its number of child death by more than two-thirds.
[00:25.89]Between 1990 and 2012,
[00:30.15]the country reported a 67 percent drop
[00:34.18]in the number of children dying
[00:36.68]before the age of five.
[00:38.84]Ethiopia's Minister of Health Kesetebirhan Admasu
[00:44.07]welcomed the good news,
[00:46.22]but he admitted that even with the improvement
[00:50.03]Ethiopia is considered a high-mortality country.
[00:54.20]"If you look at the absolute number of children dying in Ethiopia,
[01:00.26]it is still huge.
[01:02.92]We have committed to end all preventive child deaths
[01:10.59]in a generation by 2035.
[01:13.30]And we have developed a roadmap to reach that ambitious target."
[01:20.26]Diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria are the leading causes of death
[01:26.22]among young children in Ethiopia.
[01:28.73]In 1990, the country's death rate for children under five
[01:34.55]was one of the highest in the world,
[01:37.86]it was 204 death for every 1,000 births.
[01:44.23]The rate is now at 68 per 1,000,
[01:49.70]this means that hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian children
[01:54.50]who might have died in earlier years
[01:57.61]now reach their fifth birthday.
[02:00.68]Ethiopia is one of four African countries
[02:05.58]to have reached a Millennium Development Goal,
[02:08.84]the other three are Liberia, Malawi and Tanzania.
[02:14.51]One of the reasons for Ethiopia's success
[02:18.86]is its Health Extension Program,
[02:22.01]because of it,
[02:23.76]38,000 people were employed to bring health care services
[02:29.24]to a large part of the rural population.
[02:33.19]Peter Salama is UNICEF representative to Ethiopia.
[02:38.65]He says Ethiopia's plan of action
[02:41.67]can serve as an example for other countries:
[02:45.57]"Several other African countries have come to do study tours,
[02:48.98]including delegations from Togo, Guinea, Namibia
[02:53.65]- all came to study the health extension program
[02:57.02]and see how they can replicate this critical lesson of
[03:00.13]bringing health care to the doorstep of the rural population."
[03:03.26]The United Nations first announced
[03:06.37]the Millennium Development Goals 13 years ago,
[03:09.99]the goals remain to help countries pay more attention
[03:14.36]to issues such as fighting extreme poverty.
[03:17.86]Progress on the Millennium Development Goal of
[03:21.58]reducing child death is slow in most countries,
[03:25.64]only 13 of 61 countries are in a position to meet the goal.
[03:31.95]And that's the Health Report from VOA Learning English.