10,000 Neonatal Deaths Could Be Averted Everyday if Funding Targeted Poor, Say Researchers

Three million newborns who die each year could be saved with low-tech and low-cost measures but are condemned because funding and research is devoted to high-tech solutions used almost exclusively by the rich, an international study said Thursday.
Every year, four million babies die in the first month of life, according to research announced Thursday and being published by the international medical journal The Lancet. That amounts to more than 10,000 neonatal deaths per day.
''Virtually all (99 percent) occur in low- and middle-income countries, yet most research, publications, and funding focus on high-tech care for the one percent of deaths that occur in rich countries,'' the study said.