Millennium Under-5s Mortality Goal Seems Unattainable

The Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG4) included a target for lowering mortality for kids under-5 globally - it seems that the international community is failing to deal with this problem fast enough, according to an article published in The Lancet, this week's issue.


Professor Christopher Murray, Director, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA, and team put together all available databases into a computer model to forecast child mortality till 2015 worldwide, including 172 countries.


The researchers found:


-- 1980 Global under-5 mortality = 110 per 1,000

-- 2005 Global under-5 mortality = 72 per 1,000


-- 1980 Child deaths globally = 13.5 million

-- 2005 Child deaths globally = 9.7 million


-- 1990 to 2015 Global under-5 mortality expected to fall by 27%

The MDG4 target was a 67% fall.


Areas of North Africa, the Middle East, southeast Asia and Latin America have had good rates of decline in under-5 mortality. However, other areas, such as sub-Saharan Africa, have had much slower declines, as well as persistently high fertility rates.


The authors say there should be better and timelier infant-mortality measurement through more fully using existing information and applying standard analytical strategies.


The authors write "We firmly believe that evidence on levels and trends in child mortality is a global public good and that the entire worldwide public-health community will benefit from more concerted efforts to enhance it."


thelancet


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