President Lula has greeted the recent statistics regarding malnutrition and child mortality in Brazil as further evidence that the country is on course to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Part of the Pesquisa Nacional de Demografia e Saúde, the recent figures show that malnutrition among Brazilian children under the age of five fell by more than 50% between 1996 and 2006, with a 74% decrease in the Northeast, Brazil’s poorest region.

This progress with regard to malnutrition contributed to an overall decrease of 44% in child mortality.

The fourth of the eight MDGs states that by 2015 countries should aim to have achieved a two-thirds reduction in child mortality in relation to 1990.

President Lula commented that ‘the twenty-first century is the century in which the poor person … needs to become a citizen, with the right to a decent home, education, three meals a day, and access to leisure and culture’, and that Brazil is ‘on the right path’ in its pursuit of these aims.

Source: Agência Brasil and Embassy of Brazil in London