Infant Mortality Rates

Infant Mortality Rates (IMR) measure the death of infants before the age of one year and this figure is in relation to every 1000 live births in that particular country. Traditionally the major cause of IMR has been dehydration caused by diarrhoea. This problem has been addressed very heavily and the rate of IMR caused by dehydration has dropped substantially as many programs and initiatives have been implemented to combat this.

Today, the largest cause of IMR is pneumonia, which is bacteria that affects the lungs, and normally small children, especially those under the age of one, are not strong enough to fight the disease. Modern Medicine has come a long way and antibiotics can often help beat most cases of pneumonia. However, access to such medicines in second and third world countries is still a major problem. Some other issues that cause IMR include malaria, malnutrition, malformation, infection and SIDS.

There are programs that are currently in place all over the world to help fight IMR but more work needs to be done. IMR will never reach zero, but the spread from the country with the best IMR to the worst is devastating. Monaco has and IMR of 1.8 to 1000 compared to Afghanistan with 12.63 deaths per 1000. Australia comes in at 34th on the world ranking with an IMR of 4.55. In terms of continents, it is clear from the graph below that Africa has the worst IMR followed by the Middle East and then Asia.

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