Written question asked by Andrew George (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 17 January 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 19 January 2006. It was answered by Hilary Benn (Labour) on Wednesday, 25 January 2006 on behalf of the Department for International Development.

Iraq

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the infant mortality rate has been in Iraq in each of the past four years.

Answer: Estimates of Iraq's infant mortality rate vary. The most detailed information we have on infant mortality rates in Iraq is the ““Iraq living Conditions Survey 2004”” (ILCS) conducted by the Iraqi Central Office for Statistics and Information Technology in April/May 2004. This survey can be found at http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/overview.htm This gives information about infant mortality for the period 1999–2003. We do not have a breakdown of the data by year as requested.For the period 1999–2003, the survey shows the infant mortality rate as 32 deaths per 1,000 births during the first year of life. The rate for girls was 29 per 1,000 for girls and 25 per 1,000 for boys. However, other estimates have reported significantly higher infant mortality rates, and the ILCS report acknowledges that their estimate may be too low because of under-reporting of child deaths.A 2003 report by Ali, Blacker and Jones (respectively of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and UNICEF), reported the 1998 infant mortality rate as 100.8 deaths per 1,000 births. The UN Population Database (2004 revision) estimated Iraq's infant mortality rate as 94.3 deaths per 1,000 births for the period 1995–2000. They use the same estimate of 94.3 per 1,000 for the period 2000–2005.

Secondary information