Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Luanda (Agenzia Fides)- Angola has the highest infant mortality rate in Portuguese speaking countries in Africa. According to the annual report of the United Nations Population Fund the infant death rate in Angola is 133/1000, compared with the rate in Guinea Bissau 114/1000 and the rate in Mozambique 94/1000. The average infant mortality rate in less developed countries is 59/1000 and in developed countries 7/1000.
A recent report by Doctors without Frontiers MSF based on a survey made in January -April 2006 in Xa-Muteba, Lunda Norte province, 2.8 children under five out of every 10,000 die every day, three times as many as the average number in developing countries. About half the deaths are caused by malaria. “The lack of medical care in places like Xa-Muteba is difficult to explain in a country so rich in resources”, said MSF spokesman Hernan Del Valle who added that there has been little improvement in the medical field since the end of the civil war. A former colony of Portugal, torn by a bloody civil war from 1975 to 2002, Angola is the second largest oil producer in Africa after Nigeria. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 8/9/2006 righe 26 parole 303)
