A new report released this week showed the annual number of children who die before
they reach age five is shrinking. The findings published by UNICEF and World Health
Organisation found that death rates fell to 7.6 million in 2010 from more than 12
million in 1990.
But both groups stressed that improvements in child mortality
rates will not be enough to meet the United Nation's goal set in 2000 of reducing
child mortality by two-thirds by 2015.
We spoke to Head of maternal, newborn
and child health a UNICEF Renee Van de Weerdt who explained why there has been a decrease,
saying, “I think first of all at the research and scientific level we know really
well what kills children under five, we also have good evidence on what interventions
work.”
Tessa Wardlaw who is the chief of the statistics and monitoring section
at UNICEF adds that with regarding to geographical location, “we see an increasing
concentration of these deaths taking place in sub-Saharan Africa where nearly half
of all under five deaths in the world take place today as well as in Southern Asia
where about a third of them are taking place.”
Both UNICEF and the WHO say
more money is needed to help save more children’s lives. Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s
interview.