Democratic Underground - HIV may be the major problem

Here's the Institute's page on this: http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/resources/news/2010/maternal_deaths_fall_0410.html

Researchers found that progress in reducing maternal mortality has been slowed by the ongoing HIV epidemic. Nearly one out of every five maternal deaths – a total of 61,400 in 2008 – can be linked to HIV, and many of the countries with large populations affected by HIV have had the most difficulty reducing their maternal mortality ratio.

Nearly 80% of all maternal deaths are concentrated in 21 countries, and six countries account for more than half of all maternal deaths.

Eight low-income countries have seen annual increases in the MMR over the period 1990 to 2008, including Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, as have several high-income countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Norway. At least part of the increase in high-income countries appears to be due to changes in the way maternal deaths are reported. Mothers in the US now die at a higher rate than in most other high-income countries, four times the rate of Italy and three times the rate of Australia.

There's a spreadsheet of the levels (all rounded to a whole number per 100,000) and also the annual percentage change for each country (which indicates the background data is more precise, eg Germany and Japan both change from 12 to 7, but Germany falls at 3.6% per annum, and Japan at 3.0%).

The countries with the worst increases in death rates are southern African, where HIV/AIDS is a huge problem:

Country		MMR 90	MMR 08	Annual % change 90-08
United States	12	17	2.0
Malawi		743	1140	2.3
Mozambique	385	599	2.4
Côte d'Ivoire	580	944	2.7
Namibia		354	586	2.8
South Africa	121	237	3.7
Swaziland	359	736	4.0
Botswana	237	519	4.4
Lesotho		363	964	5.4
Zimbabwe	232	624	5.5

Is the HIV/AIDS rate in women substantially higher in the US than most other developed countries?

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