At a workshop on implementing an action plan for improving children’s lives in HCM City on September 22, Head of the Ministry’s Child and Mother Health Protection Department Nguyen Duy Khe said mortality rates among children in mountainous and remote provinces and poor families are three or four times higher than those recorded in wealthy families.

He emphasised the need for each locality to conduct surveys and have its own action plan to protect children’s lives, with a national programme target of reducing the mortality rate under five to below 18 percent and that of newborn babies to less than 10 percent.

A special focus should be put on reducing the mortality rate of newborn babies, which represents around 70 percent of the total children, said Dinh Thi Phuong Hoa from the Public Health University.

It can be reduced by 6-42 percent with timely emergency treatment and by 55-87 percent in term of early breastfed cases, she said.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Vietnam has around 28,000 children die under the age of five, including 16,000 newborns each year.