Current Events
India Has the Highest Child Mortality Rate in the World:
United Nations Report
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
With almost 19,000 children under five years of age dying every day
across the world, India tops the list of countries with the highest
number of 1,655,000 such deaths in 2011, according to a UN agency.
The
'Child Mortality Estimates Report 2012' released by Unicef in New York
has said that in 2011, around 50 per cent of global under-five deaths
occurred in just five countries of India, Nigeria, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and China.
Incidentally, India's toll is higher than the deaths in Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan put together.
While
there have been 756,000 deaths in Nigeria during the last year,
Democratic Republic of the Congo accounts for 465,000 deaths and
Pakistan 352,000 deaths of under-five children during 2011.
China
reported 249,000 deaths of under-5 kids last year, followed by 194,000 by Ethiopia and 134,000 each by Indonesia and Bangladesh. Uganda
with 131,000 such deaths and Afghanistan with 128,000 deaths held
the ninth and 10th position in the list of 10 top countries reporting
under-five children deaths.
Singapore with a mortality rate of
2.6 has the lowest under-five deaths, while Slovenia and Sweden followed
it with a mortality of 2.8.
The Unicef report also states that
globally Pneumonia is the leading killer of children under five, causing
18 per cent of all under-five deaths worldwide - a loss of roughly 1.3
million lives in 2011, the bulk of which occur in just two regions,
sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Globally, the five leading
causes of deaths among children under five include pneumonia (18 per
cent); pre-term birth complications (14 per cent); diarrhoea (11 per
cent); intrapartum-related complications (9 per cent) and malaria (7 per
cent).
Besides, more than a third of child deaths are attributable to undernutrition globally, the report states.
September 14, 2012