New Delhi: More and more children are now living to see their fifth birthday as the child mortality rates have dropped by a third since 1990, the latest under-five mortality estimates released by Unicef said on Friday.
However, the tragedy of preventable child deaths continues as 22,000 children below five still die each day in a few countries and half of the deaths are in just five - India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and China. As many as 70 per cent of these deaths occur in the first year of the child's life.
Levels and Trends in Child Mortality 2010, issued by the UN Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME) and published in a special edition of British medical journal, The Lancet, revealed that from 89 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990, the rate has dropped to 60 in 2009.
In addition, the total number of under-five deaths decreased globally from 12.4 million per year in 1990 to to 8.1 million in 2009.
As a result, 12,000 fewer children are dying each day around the world compared to 1990.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of child mortality, where 1 in 8 children dies before the fifth birthday -- nearly 20 times the average for developed regions (1 in 167).
Southern Asia has the second highest rates, with about 1 in 14 children dying before age five.
According to the report, compared to the rate at which under-five mortality rates have declined between 2000 and 2009, the under five deaths are still not decreasing fast enough to achieve Millennium Development Goal target (of a two thirds decline between 1990 and 2015).
The situation is grave especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia and Oceania, said the report.
The estimates are the work of a number of UN system organisations that form the Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, and are developed with oversight and advice from independent experts from academic institutions.
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