Neonatal mortality in Ukraine against COVID-19 pandemic: do not lose vigilance

Purpose - to highlight the peculiarities of mortality of children in the first year of life (absolute number and level by individual causes and gender) in Ukraine in 2019-2020; to find out whether there have been changes during the year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country that could hinder the achievement of the SDGs in the area of reducing child mortality. Materials and methods. The information base of the study was the official data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine regarding the distribution of deceased children by sex, age groups, place of residence and causes of death in 2019-2020. For comparative analysis were used a data from the Statistics Poland and World Population Review (USA) databases. In the course of the analysis were used the following methods: systematic approach, bibliosemantic, epidemiological, statistical, graphical representation. Results. It has been shown that approximately 80% in the structure of mortality under the age of 1 year in Ukraine are accounted for by two main causes: certain conditions that occur in the perinatal period - 58.5% (in 2019 - 54%) and congenital malformations - 22.3% (in 2019 - 25%). The focus is on preventable causes (first of all, external causes and infectious diseases). In 2020 were reported six deaths under the age of 1 year due to COVID-19 firstly. Despite the decline in infant mortality in 2019-2020 from 7.0 to 6.7 per 1000 live births, indicates the likelihood of a negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on infant mortality in Ukraine, primarily as a result of the influence of indirect factors, and the need for actions to eliminate or minimize such influence. Conclusions. An analysis of the spectrum and weight of the contribution of the causes of death is a tool for determining the lines and scope of intervention to prevent them on the way to Ukraine achieving by 2030 the declared indicator of infant mortality in children aged 0-4 years old of 6.7 per 1000 live births. No conflict of interests was declared by the authors.