Maternal mortality in Tanzania has remained unacceptably high, claiming the lives of 529 women for every 100,000 live births, Anna Abdallah, the country's minister of health told IRIN. This death rate, she said, had remained unchanged since the 1990s and the underlying cause for this included malaria, anaemia and HIV/AIDS. She also said the number of pregnant women with access to health services had dropped from 44 percent in the early 1990s to 36 percent today.