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2015: India lost 2 kids below the age of 5 every minute; MP worse than Africa

Assam and Madhya Pradesh recorded worse U5MR than Ghana in sub-Saharan Africa

Gorakhpur tragedy
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Children receive treatments in the Encephalitis Ward at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital where over 60 children have died over the past one week, in Gorakhpur district on Monday | PTI Photo

Chaitanya Mallapur | IndiaSpend

Nearly 1.08 million Indian children under the age of five years died in 2015–that’s 2,959 deaths every day or two each minute–many of them of causes that were preventable and treatable.

India’s under-five mortality rate (U5MR)–the probability that a child born in a specific year will die before reaching the age of five–was reported to be 43 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2015 in the Sample Registration System Statistical Report 2015, the latest available data.

Child mortality is considered one of the bellwethers