Current situation
Zimbabwe has good coverage of basic health services, like immunization and skilled birth attendance. But it has high infant and maternal mortality rates, which means that health care quality is still a critical issue. Zimbabwe is performing well in terms of coverage of basic maternal, reproductive and child health services compared to the Sub-Saharan Africa average. Four out of five women deliver in a health facility, and almost all women receive at least one prenatal care visit. However, the bottleneck analysis conducted for the 2016-2020 National Health Strategy highlighted that, despite high service coverage for most basic health services, quality of care at all levels remains poor or sub-optimal. The analysis also noted weak program integration, resulting in missed opportunities to achieve greater impact with the available resources, as well as the lack of continuum of care along the life cycle (newborns, adolescents) and across service delivery levels (community level, tertiary level).
Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) declined from 960 per 100,000 live births in 2010-2011 to 651 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Similarly, the under-five mortality rate dropped from 84 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2010/11 to 69 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2015. The infant mortality rate decreased from 57 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2010/11 to 50 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2015 (Zimstat 2016). This progress did not, however, enable Zimbabwe to meet its health-related MDGs.