Korea’s neonatal death rate has halved in just two decades and is now 16th lowest in the world, marking 2.2 per every 1,000 newborns in 2009.

North Korea also saw a slight decrease but still remained among the worst countries, pointing to hygiene and nutrition problems in the country.

The World Health Organization and international charity Save the Children have estimated the newborn mortality rates of more than 200 countries for the last 20 years. 

They found that the number of babies dying within four weeks of birth in 2009 had dropped by about 45 percent from 1990’s four infant mortalities out of every 1,000. Korea tied with France, Estonia and Malta in 16th place.

San Marino had the lowest infant mortality rate of 0.6 per 1,000, while Japan marked 1.1.

The bottom rank, with the highest mortality rate, went to Afghanistan and Somalia marking 53 per 1,000, followed by Congo, Mali and Sierra Leone.

North Korea’s infant mortality rate marked 18.1 in 2009, a decrease from 23 in 1990, but a figure that still left the country in 125th place.

In 2009, about 3.3 million babies died during their first four weeks of life, compared with 4.6 million in 1990. About 41 percent of all deaths of children under five took place in the first month, referred to as the neonatal period.

If progress is not made to reduce the number of newborn deaths, the portion of child deaths that occurs in the neonatal period is likely to increase in future, the researchers said.

“It is essential that governments, international agencies, and civil society increase attention to systematically preventing and tracking neonatal deaths,” the researchers wrote.

The study was published in the Monday edition of the journal PLoS Medicine.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)