Slow diminution of child mortality must be fastened

A study has reported that millions of children across the world die before the age of five.

According to a study led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, deaths due to preterm births and pneumonia were largely prevalent even during the year 2000 and together these two have killed nearly 2 million young children in 2013.

Lead author Li Liu and his colleagues from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the World Health Organization and University of Edinburgh analyzed vital statistics records and verbal autopsy data and estimated causes of child deaths for 194 World Health Organization member states through computer modeling.

Out of the 3.6 million fewer child deaths in 2013 compared to 2000, half were due to reductions in pneumonia, diarrhea and measles deaths. Deaths from measles, tetanus, HIV and diarrhea fell at the fastest rates since 2000.

Liu asserted the fact that despite huge success there was still a long way to go, as millions of children were still dying of preventable causes at a time when we have the means to deliver cost-effective interventions. And without devoted research, resources and attention to the issue of child survival, we may lose the battle.

The United Nations, in an eight-point blueprint known as the Millennium Development Goals, set a goal of reducing the mortality rate for children under five, the most vulnerable group, by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. The rate has fallen but that goal remains. If the trend continued, the world would witness an estimated 4.4 million under-five children deaths in 2030.

Mortality rates among infants under 28 days of age have fallen much more slowly than that of children under five as a whole and are becoming an increasing area of concern. Further reducing newborn mortality would often require health system strengthening.

The researchers say the push in coming years must in particular focus on reducing child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa which currently accounts for 25 percent of the world's births and 50 percent of under-five deaths.

The study was published in the Lancet.