FOR more than a century, the infant mortality rate – the proportion of babies who die before their first birthday – has stood as a primary measure not just of health, but of a nation or region’s economic and social functioning.
Industrialised countries with stable governments, high employment and adequate health and welfare systems do best. Sweden, Japan and Singapore are the current stars, losing fewer than 3 infants per thousand live births. The UK’s infant death rate is 5 per thousand. Countries with faltering or failed governments or endemic poverty, and those experiencing social, economic or political disruption, fare far worse.…
