Infant mortality down 50%

The mortality rate of newborns in the Kingdom has dropped 50 percent because of the country's advances in medical care, said a Ministry of Health official here yesterday.
Abdulaziz Al-Humaidhi, undersecretary at the Ministry of Heath for Treatment Services, said over 600,000 babies are now born every year in the Kingdom. He was addressing a three-day conference on newborn medicine in Riyadh that started Wednesday.
The decline in the mortality rates of the newborn was because of improved health services and the opening of facilities in small towns across the country, he was quoted as saying by the local media.
The increasing number of births in the country has resulted in the Ministry of Health launching a number of newborn medicine projects and drawing up policy guidelines for services, he said.
He praised the Saudi Society for Newborn Medicine for helping to improve health care services over the last seven years.
The conference is focusing on therapeutic developments in respiratory diseases, jaundice and nutrition for newborn babies. The Saudi Commission for Heath Specialties approved the topics.