Strategic planning for saving the lives of mothers, newborns, and children and preventing stillbirths in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa: modelling using the Lives Saved Tool

This paper attempts to identify and cost priority intervention areas for impact on maternal and child mortality over the next five years in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Key findings include that if all interventions were scaled up to full coverage (95 per cent) from baseline by 2019, maternal mortality could be reduced by 50 per cent to 74 deaths per 100,000 live births. Neonatal and under-five mortalities could both reduce by 46 per cent to 5.6 deaths per 1,000 births and 17.8 deaths per 1,000 births respectively.