“There is good news, and the most important thing is that we have reached a historic low in the mortality of children under the age of five, which for the first time went below 5 million, at 4.9 million,” said Helga Fogstad, responsible for Agence France-Presse. for health issues at UNICEF, tasked with drafting the relevant report, in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the World Bank.
The new estimate, of 4.9 million child deaths in 2022, represents a 51% decrease from 2000 and a 62% decrease from 1990. These numbers, however, like any year, have some margin of statistical error.
And, despite progress, they mean a child is dying every 6 seconds.
Progress has been particularly noticeable in some developing countries (Malawi, Rwanda, DR Congo, Cambodia, Mongolia), where child mortality has fallen by more than 75% since 2000.
“Behind these numbers are the midwives and members of the trained health staff, who help mothers bring their children into the world safely (…), who vaccinate and protect children from deadly diseases”, and those who visit “at home” to guarantee children’s good health and nutrition, UNICEF head Catherine Russell commented in a press release accompanying the report.
But the “achievement” is “precarious”: “Progress risks being bogged down, or even reversed, unless efforts are made to address the numerous threats to the health and survival of newborns and children,” the text warns. .
There are already worrying signs. Globally and in some regions, especially sub-Saharan Africa, progress has “slowed down”: between 2000 and 2015, the decline in child mortality was twice as fast as in the period 2015-2022.
The place of birth
In total, 162 million children under the age of 5 have died since 2000, 72 million of them within the first month of birth.
Complications during birth (premature births, suffocation, congenital anomalies…) were still among the main causes of child mortality, with 2.3 million deaths within the first month of life in 2022.
Between the ages of one month and five years, respiratory infections (especially pneumonia), malaria and diarrhea were the leading causes of child death.
These deaths are all the more intolerable because they could have been “avoided,” the report says.
But in the absence of urgent investment in child health, 59 countries have missed the UN target of reducing child mortality to 25 deaths per 1,000 births by 2030, and 64 countries have missed the specific target for deaths in the first month (12 per 1,000).
“These are not just numbers on a page: they are lives ended prematurely. If current trends continue, 35 million children will die before they reach their fifth birthday between now and 2030,” the text underlines.
The progress also masks disappearing inequalities on a global scale, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for more than half of all under-5 deaths in 2022.
Each newborn in the countries with the highest child mortality (Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, with over 100 under-5 deaths per 1,000 births) is 80 times more likely to die before turning 5 than than any child born in any of the countries with the lowest rates (Estonia, Finland, Japan, Norway, Singapore, San Marino, Slovenia, Sweden, with less than 2.5 deaths per 1,000 births).
“The place of birth of each child should not determine whether he will live or die,” says WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“It is absolutely essential that we improve access to quality health services for every woman and every child,” even in emergency situations or isolated locations, she adds.
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