(September 14, 2012) The number of children under the age of five who die annually
fell below 7 million in 2011, but UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency says
about 19,000 boys and girls are still dying every day from largely preventable causes.
A UNICEF report released on Wednesday said that more than 80 percent of all under-five
deaths in 2011 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. UNICEF Executive Director
Anthony Lake said in the report that since these regions, especially sub-Saharan Africa,
``will account for the bulk of the world's births in the next years, we must give
new impetus to the global momentum to reduce under-five deaths.'' He said lives can
be saved with vaccines, adequate nutrition and basic medical and maternal care. UNICEF
hailed a sharp drop of about 40 percent in the number of children under the age of
five dying, with the estimated global toll falling from nearly 12 million in 1990
to 6.9 million in 2011. Poor countries such as Bangladesh, Liberia and Rwanda, middle-income
countries such as Brazil, Mongolia and Turkey, and high-income countries such as Oman
and Portugal, all made what UNICEF described as dramatic gains, lowering their under-five
death rates by more than two-thirds between 1990 and 2011. More than half the
pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths – which together account for almost 30 percent of under-five
deaths worldwide - occur in just four countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Vaccines to prevent pneumococcal disease and rotavirus,
leading causes of pneumonia and diarrhoea, are widely available in wealthy countries
but are still only gradually being rolled out in poorer nations. Barbara Frost, chief
executive of British-based charity WaterAid, said UNICEF's report also underlined
the need for urgent focus on improving sanitation and access to clean water in developing
countries. The report showed that 11 percent of child deaths – equating to 759,000
a year or 2,079 a day - are due to diarrhoeal diseases, of which 88 percent can be
attributed to a lack of clean water, safe sanitation and hygiene. Pneumonia is the
biggest killer disease of children, according to the World Health Organisation. Latest
data for 2010 shows that about one in three of the world's population still lack access
to safe sanitation and one in 10 do not have clean drinking water.