LONDON: About 4.9 million children died before reaching their fifth birthday in 2024, according to new United Nations estimates, a sign progress to reduce child mortality rates was stalling even before global aid budget cuts last year.
Most of the deaths were preventable with better access to healthcare and low-cost interventions for challenges like complications from pre-term birth or diseases like malaria, said UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the U.N. population division, which produced the report.
Preventable child deaths have more than halved since 2000, the agencies said, but progress has slowed since 2015. In 2022, the figure was also 4.9 million, then a record-low; in 2023, it was 4.8 million. While the 2024 number appears to show a rise, the agencies said the data was calculated differently in the two different years, and could not be directly compared.
GLOBAL SLOWDOWN IN REDUCING CHILD MORTALITY RATES
“However... we do see a global slowdown in mortality reduction,” a WHO spokesperson added, warning that conflict, economic instability, climate change, and weak health systems were all contributing to stalling progress. Aid cuts would add to the challenge, she said.
