UN: 17,000 children die every day

Close-up of a child at Port-au-Prince’s general hospital, where the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and NGO Concern have teamed up to create a new nutrition centre for malnourished children. Photo by United Nations Photo/ CC BY-NC-ND

MANILA, Philippines - The United Nations Report published on Tuesday said over six million children under five died last year - that's nearly 17,000 young children dying every day,

The report is led by the UN children's agency Unicef, the World Health Organization and World Bank.

Among the causes are preventable, including pneumonia, malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition, hunger, and complications during birth.

And while death rates have been cut in half since 1990 (12.7 million), the rate still falls short of meeting the millennium development goals (MDGs) by next year.

"With 2.8 million newborns dying each year, accounting for 44% of under-five deaths, progress has been insufficient and is now impeding improvement in child survival worldwide," said the report.

The world's highest rate of child mortality was in Angola, with 167 deaths for every 1,000 live births. Saharan Africa still had the world's highest rate of child mortality. Currently, there are around 92 deaths per 1,000 live births, almost 15 times the average in the majority of affluent countries.

Around half of all under-five deaths occur in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The UN multimediaorg, meanwhile, said the 2014 Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed progress report indicates that the first 28 days of a newborn's life are the most vulnerable with almost 2.8 million babies dying each year during this period. One million of them don't even live to see their second day of life.

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