In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, Zulfiqar Bhutta of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, and Robert Black of the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, examine global efforts to improve maternal, newborn and child health and achieve “the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 targeting a reduction in mortality among children younger than five years of age by two thirds and MDG 5 targeting a reduction in maternal mortality by three quarters, both from 1990 base figures.” They note, “Recent assessment of global statistics suggests that despite major gains, among the 75 so-called Countdown countries that have 98 percent of all maternal deaths and deaths among children younger than five years of age, only 17 are on track to reach the MDG 4 target for child mortality and only nine are on track to reach the MDG 5 target for maternal mortality,” and they examine global mortality trends, causes of death, existing interventions and challenges going forward (12/5).