Socio-economic profile of Pakistan (Part II)

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HEALTH SECTOR
The other important sector to analyze when talking of socio economic development is the health sector.
Infant Mortality Rate
The infant Mortality Rate of 70 for Pakistan indicates that 70 out of 1000 children born end up dead before reaching the age of 1 even due to the causes mentioned in the earlier section in this report. Even in this area, Pakistan is worse off than even African countries such as Sudan and Ghana. If compared to regional countries, the figure of 70 is not even comparable.Under 5 Mortality

Similar income profile countries
Regional countries
Pak.
Sudan
Ghana
Laos
Nigeria
BD
India
Srilanka
Gdp per capita (ppp) $
2787
2726
3083
2659
2578
1693
3694
5674
Infant mortality rates
70
66
50
42
88
38
48
14

 
Under 5 mortality rates are also important as they indicate as to whether the children who survive infancy later survive or not. As can be seen in the table below, this indicator for Pakistan is significantly better than Nigeria and Sudan and is slightly worse than Ghana.
However, there is an obvious gap when this comparison is made to Regional countries


Similar income profile countries
Regional countries
Pak.
Sudan
Ghana
Laos
Nigeria
BD
India
Srilanka
Gdp per capita (ppp) $
2787
2726
3083
2659
2578
1693
3694
5674
Under 5 mortality rates
87
103
74
54
143
48
63
17


% of Under 5 who are underweight
One of the most important indicators of nutrition is this. It indicates what % of children under the age of 5 years are actually underweight. Owing to the development work done by United Nations and its agencies, along with various NGOs, nutrition situation in African countries has become fairly good. Infact some of the regional countries are exhibiting indicators that are worse than Pakistan. Also, since the similar income profile countries are actually better off in terms of child nutrition than Pakistan but are more or less similar in terms of the Under 5 mortality rate, it shows that nutrition deficiency is one the primary reason for under 5 mortality rate in Pakistan.



Similar income profile countries
Regional countries

Pak.
Sudan
Ghana
Laos
Nigeria
BD
India
Srilanka
Gdp per capita (ppp) $
2787
2726
3083
2659
2578
1693
3694
5674
% of under-fives suffering from underweight
31%
27%
14%
31%
23%
41%
43%
21%



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