Child Death Rate Decreases

Deaths among children under five years old have dropped more than previously thought and the declines are accelerating in several developing countries, reflecting significant improvements in care, according to a new study. About 7.7 million deaths in infants and young children are expected globally in 2010, compared with 11.9 million deaths in 1990 and 16 million in 1970, according to the study, conducted by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and published Monday by the journal The Lancet. The rate of decline of about 2.1% a year still doesn't match the annual 4.4% decline needed to meet a United Nations goal to reduce deaths in children under age five by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. But it appears to reflect a scale-up of funding in recent years for efforts to combat malaria, mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and to immunize more children, resulting in greater progress than previously known against childhood diseases, the researchers said. The new findings reflect lower estimates of child mortality than previous studies, reflecting more data and improved methods of analysis, the researchers said. The paper noted that Unicef reported 8.77 million deaths in 2008, compared with the study's 7.95 million deaths for that year.



The decrease in infant mortality is great news. The amount went down almost by 1 million children and the more children that survive the better. Children in Malawi usually don't live beyond the age of 5, which to Americans and many other people, is not common at all. The death rate is extremely morbid for people like us but looking on the positive side of it all, the death rate is decreasing so something is working over there.