GLOBAL CHILD SURVIVAL AND HEALTH
A 50-year progress report from UNICEF Canada
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L-R: Nigel Fisher, Sir Roger Moore and
the Honourable Josée Verner |
Global Child Survival and Health: A 50-year progress report from UNICEF Canada shows that key learnings and technologies developed over the past decades provide the means to prevent and treat the biggest threats to children’s health.
In 1955, parents around the world faced the harsh reality that 210 out of every 1,000 children born would die before reaching age five. Today, that number has been decreased to 79 out of every 1,000 children. Overall progress is continuing as the under-five mortality rates continue to decline globally every year – three million more children survived in the year 2000 than in 1990, an 11 per cent decrease in under-five mortality in that decade alone.
However, the report shows that progress has been neither perfect nor even. In 14 countries (nine in sub-Saharan Africa), the national rates of child mortality actually increased in recent years, largely due to the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS. Globally, 10.6 million children are still dying from preventable causes every year.
- Pneumonia and other acute respiratory infections kill approximately two million children every year, making it the leading cause of death of children under five years of age
- Diarrhoeal disease kills 1.6 million children every year, primarily by causing severe dehydration that can quickly result in the failure of vital organs in young children
- Malaria kills 3,000 African children every single day, making it the largest cause of death for children under five on the continent and leaving a legacy of persistent anaemia, lifelong brain damage or paralysis for many who survive
- Measles kills more than half a million children every year. 1,800 children under the age of 15 are infected with HIV every day, most through transmission of the virus from mother to baby during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding
- Fifteen million children worldwide have been orphaned by AIDS, losing their first line of protection against disease and harm when their parents die. Iodine deficiency in pregnancy causes mental impairment in almost 18 million babies a year
- About 100-140 million children around the world are estimated to suffer from some form of vitamin A deficiency, leaving them at increased risk of mortality.
Some of the key advances in prevention and treatment over the past five decades include public health education, community management of disease, the development of oral rehydration therapy, technical breakthroughs in clean water supply, the development of long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets, efficiencies in vaccine supply and micronutrient supplementation.
Fact sheets