16th October, 2004

Child mortality rates around the world are improving but the rate of progress is too slow to reach the global goal of reducing child deaths by two thirds by 2015.

A survey by UNICEF has found that in 2002, the latest year for which data is available, one in 12 children died before the age of five, representing an estimated 11 million preventable deaths each year.

While the most prominent cause of child deaths is poor neonatal conditions, infections, malnutrition, unclean or inadequate water and sanitation problems are key factors.

HIV/AIDS and armed conflict are also contributing to the rate of child deaths. Iraq is the only country in the Middle East and North Africa where the child mortality rate increased from 1990 to 2002 with one in 10 children now dying before the age of five.

Sierra Leone continues to have the world’s highest rate of child mortality with 284 deaths per 1,000 births annually.

While 90 countries are on track to meet the goal of reducing child deaths by two-thirds, 98 countries were described as “considerably off track” meaning that if current trends continue, child deaths will have only dropped by a quarter by the deadline of 2015.

“A child’s right to survive is the first measure of equality, possibility, and freedom,” says Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF.
 
“It is incredible that in an age of technological and medical marvels, child survival is so tenuous in so many places, especially for the poor and marginalised. We can do better than this.”

- DAVID ADAMS