Sri Lanka records maternal deaths at a rate more than ten times below the global average, according to the latest international estimates, and well below every other country in South Asia.
The most recent international estimates for 2023, issued jointly by the World Health Organization and other United Nations agencies, put the global figure at 197 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Sri Lanka’s is given as 18, Hiru News reported at 9.59 a.m. on Wednesday.
The regional comparison
Sri Lanka’s position within South Asia is not marginal. On the same set of estimates:
| Country | Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births |
|---|---|
| Sri Lanka | 18 |
| India | 80 |
| Bangladesh | 115 |
| Nepal | 142 |
| Pakistan | 155 |
The nearest regional figure is more than four times Sri Lanka’s.
Two numbers for the same year
The Health Ministry’s own records give a different figure, and the filing reports both without reconciling them.
Domestically, Sri Lanka recorded 47 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021, falling to 33 in 2022 and 25 in 2023. In absolute terms, 62 maternal deaths were recorded in the country in 2023.
So for 2023 there are two numbers: 18 from the international estimates and 25 from national reporting. Both appear in the same report.
They are not necessarily in conflict, because they are produced differently. National figures are counts compiled from reported deaths; the UN inter-agency figures are modelled estimates that adjust country data for under-reporting and misclassification, and they can land either side of the reported number.
The arithmetic favours reading 25 as the count. Sixty-two deaths at a rate of 25 per 100,000 implies roughly 248,000 live births — consistent with the scale of Sri Lanka’s recent annual births. The same 62 deaths at a rate of 18 would require about 344,000 live births, which is far above what Sri Lanka currently registers. The lower figure therefore behaves like a modelled estimate rather than a tally.
It is worth noting which number the WHO itself has used. In a statement marking World Health Day 2025, the organisation described Sri Lanka’s reduction of maternal mortality to 25 per 100,000 live births in 2023 as “remarkable”, as reported by The Island on 12 April 2025. That is the national figure, not the 18.
What is credited for the result
The filing attributes the outcome to Sri Lanka’s free health service, antenatal screening for pregnant mothers, the work of public health midwives, and obstetric and gynaecological services in state hospitals.
The WHO’s 2025 assessment identified a similar set of factors, singling out the professionalisation of midwifery and data-driven decision-making, alongside a system providing free and equitable access to maternal care.
The global context
Against that 2025 WHO assessment, the scale of the global problem is the measure of Sri Lanka’s position. Close to 300,000 women die each year from complications of pregnancy or childbirth worldwide. More than two million newborns do not survive their first month and a further two million are stillborn — a preventable death roughly every seven seconds.
Global maternal deaths have fallen about 40 percent since 2000, from 446,000 to 260,000 in 2023, but the burden is highly concentrated: Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for around 70 percent of maternal deaths in 2023, with Central and Southern Asia contributing a further 17 percent.
The Sustainable Development Goal target is to cut the global rate below 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030. Sri Lanka is already well inside that threshold on either of its two 2023 figures.
The 2025 WHO assessment is cited above as background and is dated; it is not a source for today’s figures.
The caveat in the filing
The report does not present the result as a solved problem. Preventing maternal deaths entirely remains a challenge, it states, and being ahead of other countries does not change that 62 women died in 2023.
The 2025 WHO statement also raised a concern this one does not address: a rising trend in low birth weight among Sri Lankan newborns, and a need to examine the underlying causes, particularly maternal nutrition.
Not reported
The filing does not break the 62 deaths down by cause, district or age, and gives no figure for 2024 or 2025 — the national series stops at 2023, two years back. It does not say when the UN estimates were published or name the report they come from, quotes no health official, and gives no comparison with Sri Lanka’s own earlier decades. Nor does it address whether the recent fall in the number of births is itself affecting the rate.
This report rests on a single verified source. Searches of other verified newsrooms found no outlet carrying the same set of figures within the freshness window.