According to a report from a charity, lives of thousands of babies are being jeopardized by lack of funding for baby research. It said that £3.7m was spent on this subject during 2004-05, which accounts to just 0.3% of the total research budget.
However, a Department of Health spokeswoman said that spending on baby research actually stood at £6m a year. "Quality proposals for research into premature births can apply for a share of this funding for their projects," she added.In UK, every year, about 43,000 premature babies are being born; a major cause for more deaths of the infants, and, Action Medical Research said that the government spends only a tiny fraction of its total research budget on preventing premature birth.
The figure for government spending on the area came from Hansard and its survey of more than 1,000 people, which revealed that, though the Govt. committed an average of 12% of its total research budget on this, the public wants the government to spend an average of 24% of its budget on baby research.
Advanced technology and expertise healthcare systems has led to greater survival rates of premature babies in England and Wales, where the infant mortality rate is at its ever lowest level of 4.9 per 1000 live births.
Source-Medindia
SRI
