Sub-Saharan Africa is highly unlikely to meet its 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target for reducing maternal mortality at its current pace, a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official has warned.<\/p>\n
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The region continues to carry the heaviest global burden, accounting for nearly 70% of all global maternal deaths. The issue has returned to the local spotlight following reports that 12 babies were recently born to Malawian nationals seeking emergency shelter at a community hall in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, highlighting broader questions around healthcare access for vulnerable and migrant populations.<\/p>\n
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Dr Adeniyi Aderoba, Team Lead for Reproductive and Maternal Health at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, stressed that over three-quarters of these deaths are completely preventable and stem from a critical failure in healthcare access and quality.<\/p>\n
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“Maternal mortality is not just a number,” Aderoba stated. “Behind every number is a woman whose life has been cut short trying to give life. The majority of deaths are due to direct obstetric causes like severe bleeding, hypertensive disorders, infections, and complications from unsafe abortions. We know exactly what is killing women in Africa.”<\/p>\n
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Aderoba highlighted the “three delays” that act as structural barriers to survival: delays in seeking care due to cost or gender norms, delays in reaching under-resourced facilities due to poor infrastructure, and delays in receiving quality care once at a hospital. Alarmingly, over half of the continent’s maternal deaths occur in regions impacted by high conflict rates.<\/p>\n
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To address the severe shortage of skilled personnel, the WHO is pushing a “plan, train, and retain” strategy. The initiative aims to utilise data-driven mapping to deploy staff where shortages are most severe, shift toward competency-based education for midwives, and implement retention packages, such as fast-tracked specialized training, for professionals working in rural areas. Aderoba also pointed out a stark paradox in the current system, noting that up to 25% of trained healthcare graduates on the continent remain unemployed or underemployed due to fiscal budget constraints.<\/p>\n
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While the continent as a whole is lagging behind the SDG target of reducing maternal mortality to fewer than 70 deaths per 100 000 live births, nations like Zimbabwe have shown significant improvement by targeting rural demographics and utilising schools to expand reproductive health education for adolescents.<\/p>\n
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The WHO maintains that reversing the trend across the rest of the continent will require governments to aggressively scale up low-cost, low-tech interventions, including the consistent supply of oxytocin, magnesium sulfate, and contraceptives, while building functional clinical referral networks.<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":35015,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-37727","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Sub-Saharan Africa is highly unlikely to meet its 2030 Sustainable Development Goal target for reducing maternal mortality","published_date":"2026-06-22 13:08:23","news_description":"Sub-Saharan Africa is highly unlikely to meet its 2030 Sustainable Development Goal target for reducing maternal mortality","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37728,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37727\/revisions\/37728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}