Reports Highlight Improvements in Child Mortality

According to UNICEF, “More than 70 per cent of almost 11 million child deaths every year are attributable to six causes: diarrhoea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery, or lack of oxygen at birth.”

Recently there has been a lot of discussion on meeting the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) as the 2015 deadline grows increasingly near and many continue to remain off track. One of the MDGs with a high priority to many is the goal to reduce child mortality by two-thirds, from 93 children of every 1,000 dying before age five in 1990 to 31 of every 1,000 in 2015. While some critics and skeptics have feared that true progress was a far reaching dream, others remain more positive and in some areas progress appears to be coming. In light of a recent report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) there has been progress in decreasing the number of deaths among children due to malnutrition, HIV and tuberculosis.

The WHO recently released their 2010 Annual Report, mapped childhood mortality and showed that almost half of the deaths occurring in children five years old or younger were in -China, Nigeria, India, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Pakistan. Two-thirds of those deaths are caused by infectious diseases, including malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea.

The report however highlighted the  improvements made in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Rwanda, though some countries may still struggle to meet the MDGs by the 2015 target. Annual deaths of children fell to 8.8 million in 2008, down 30% from 1990 levels.

The key findings of WHO’s report were that:

• Fewer children are dying, with annual global deaths of children under five falling to 8.8 million in 2008 — down by 30 percent since 1990;
• The estimated percentage of underweight children under five has dropped from 25 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2010;
• The proportion of births attended by a skilled health worker has increased globally, but in the Africa and southeast Asia fewer than 50 percent of all births were attended;
• New HIV infections have declined by 16 percent globally from 2001 to 2008. In 2008, 2.7 million people contracted the human immunodeficiency virus which causes AIDS, and there were 2 million HIV/AIDS-related deaths;
• Existing cases of tuberculosis are declining, along with deaths among HIV-negative tuberculosis cases;
• The world is on track to achieve the MDG target on access to safe drinking water, but more needs to be done to achieve the sanitation target.

While the report shows improvements and a clearer picture at how on track some of the MDGs are, others such as sanitation continue to lag behind.  The  progress in the area of sanitation showed poorer results and must be heavily addressed to keep the child mortality MDG on track as poor sewerage can spread deadly infections such as viral hepatitis and cholera.