Reductions in childhood mortality have prevented 100m deaths since 1990

By THE DATA TEAM

OF ALL the measures of progress in public health in recent decades, statistics on childhood mortality are among the most encouraging. In the mid-1970s, children born in India had a one-in-five chance of dying before their fifth birthdays. By the mid-1990s that rate had fallen by half, to one in ten. Today it stands at one in 25. The gains registered in India just since 1990 translate to an astonishing 34m lives saved.

Although India is the most striking example, it is far from the only one: the country accounts for only a third of the total improvement worldwide. In 1990 12.5m children around the world died before their fifth birthdays. Last year, according to a new report by the UN and the World Bank, the figure was 5.4m. Extrapolated over 28 years, that reduction corresponds to roughly an additional 100m children who are alive today.

With childhood mortality on the wane across Asia, Africa has now become the continent of greatest concern. In 1990 30% of children who died before turning five lived in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year the proportion was 50%. Around one of every 13 babies born in Africa five years ago is no longer alive. In the most troubled countries—the Central African Republic, Somalia and South Sudan—the share is close to one in four.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals call for countries to reduce their childhood-mortality rates to under 25 per 1,000 live births by 2030. As things stand, 77 countries fall short of this target. Although India is on track to reach it on time, about 50 countries are not improving fast enough to do so. As a result, another 56m children are projected to die between 2018 and 2030 from curable ailments such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria.