Infant mortality in Azerbaijan remains high, paper says
Zerkalo, Baku
29 Sep 04
According to the forecast of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA),
Azerbaijan’s population will reach some 11m people by 2050. Our South
Caucasus neighbours are lagging behind in this aspect (2.3m in Armenia
and 3.5m in Georgia). At present, the official statistics puts the
population of the three countries at 8.4m, 3.1m and 5.1m respectively.
The average annual increase in population is 0.9 per cent in
Azerbaijan. The figure is negative for Georgia and Armenia: -0.9 and
-0.5 per cent respectively. These and other interesting figures were
unveiled at the presentation of “The state of the world population”
report, which is dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Cairo
Consensus on population, reproductive health and the global effort
to end poverty.
[Passage omitted: Forecast for the entire world]
Cingiz Ismayilov, head of the centre for development of Azerbaijan’s
regions, has said that due to insufficient funds, much remains to be
done in the sphere of decreasing the infant mortality rate, preventing
the spread of AIDS, and satisfying the needs of young families.
The UNFPA put the number of Azerbaijan’s economically active
population at 3.85m in 2003, although not all of those people
were employed. The figure is on the rise. Between 1995 and 2003, it
increased by 300,000. The natural growth of the population, meanwhile,
is in decline: it was 94,000 in 1995; 70,000 in 2000 and around 60,000
in 2003.
This fact is bound to cause concern. It is also sad that the rate of
infant mortality in Azerbaijan remains high. The number of deaths
per 1,000 births in the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States]
countries is as follows: 17 in Armenia, 29 in Azerbaijan, 11 in
Belarus, 18 in Georgia, 52 in Kazakhstan, 37 in Kyrgyzstan, 18 in
Moldova, 16 in Russia, 50 in Tajikistan, 49 in Turkmenistan, 14 in
Ukraine and 37 in Uzbekistan.
Four causes of abortion among the women aged 15 to 49 in
countries such as Moldova, Russia, Azerbaijan and Georgia attract
attention. Artificial limits on the number of children in a family
accounts for 28 per cent of abortions in Moldova, whereas social and
economic factors account for 57 per cent, opinion of the partner for 7
per cent, and health concerns for 8 per cent of the abortions. Similar
figures for Russia were, accordingly, 53 per cent, 30 per cent, 11 per
cent and 7 per cent; for Georgia they were 66 per cent, 29 per cent,
2 per cent and 4 per cent; and in Azerbaijan they were 63 per cent,
32 per cent, 1 per cent and 4 four per cent.