Over the next 10 minutes, 10 young women will die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth [MDG Goal No: 4]. 99% of these deaths will be in developing countries and almost all of them could be prevented with simple interventions. And over the next 10 minutes, 200 children will die from common illnesses such as pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea. Again, the vast majority of these deaths will be in developing countries and could be avoided with simple, inexpensive interventions.

The health-related MDGs do not cover all the health issues that matter to poor people and poor countries. But they do serve as markers of the most basic challenges ahead: to stop women dying during pregnancy and child birth; to protect young children from ill-health and death; and to tackle the major communicable diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS.

2010 is a critical year, with the MDG target date of 2015 only 5 years away. The evidence so far suggests that while there has been some progress, too many countries - particularly the poorest - are falling behind in health.

This is likely to affect other areas, including education, gender equality and poverty reduction. In short, the MDG vision - to create a better and fairer world - will fail unless we can do more to improve the health of poor people.

The MDG Review is continuing in its quest to bring forward the solution providers and have them sit with the policy makers and help identify practical ways to attack the issues affecting Healthcare.

Read and discuss some of the contributions made by some of the world’s leaders in healthcare provision as well as from those agencies who deal with the issues hands on.