Nigeria, India Lead UNICEF Report On Child Deaths

A new report released by the United Nations body, UNICEF, has revealed that Nigeria lags only behind India in countries with the highest number of deaths among children under-five years in 2013.

According to the report, half of the global deaths among children below the age of five occur in only five countries.

The countries are India (21 per cent), Nigeria (13 per cent), Pakistan (six per cent), Democratic Republic of Congo (five per cent), and China (four per cent).

High-income countries only accounted for nearly two per cent of global under-five deaths in 2013, the report, titled 'Committing to child survival: A promise renewed, stated.

However, the report indicated that these countries accounted for only about 11 per cent of all births as well as 11 per cent of all children under age five in the world in 2013.

UNICEF, in the 2014 progress report, noted that Sub-Saharan Africa faces an additional challenge of extra efforts to decrease the child death rates needed to undo the projected increase in live births and population of children below the age of five.

“If current demographic trends continues, an estimated five billion children will be born worldwide between 2015 and 2050, 1.6 billion of them in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 
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