The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said the global economic decline had erased some of the achievements in healthcare of women and poverty reduction and that women and young girls were feeling the direct pinch of the crisis.

More investments should be poured into the healthcare sector so that women and young girls can have greater chance of accessing better medical care, especially for reproductive health.

Figures from UNFPA show the world annually loses around US$15 billion worth of products as half a million pregnant women and four million newborns die a year. But to save them, only US$6 billion is needed to provide them with access to better medical care services.

Bruce Campbell, chief representative of UNFPA in Vietnam, said the lives of a majority of the mothers and those pregnant who died could have been saved if all of them had been provided with access to reproductive health services.

Vietnam now has one of the world’s biggest populations, with 86.5 million people, ranking 13th globally. Its population growth is on the decline but there have appeared risks such as a high population density, 257 people per square kilometer, six times higher than the world average, and a widening gender imbalance.

The gender imbalance issue has recently been in the headlines because for every 112 men, Vietnam has only 100 women.

Nguyen Ba Thuy, deputy health minister and head of the General Department of Population and Family Planning, said the country’s human development index had improved but not significantly, with the ranking put at 105 out of 177 countries.

According to the Ministry of Finance, Vietnam spent VND644 billion on population activities last year and will increase the figure to VND746 billion this year. Despite a rise in the budget, the country is facing mounting challenges as foreign aid for purchase of contraceptive devices is no longer available.