MEXICO: The United Nations has issued a dire warning to India over its abysmally high infant and maternal mortality rate.
UNCEF has projected that if current trends of under-five mortality rate continue, by 2030 just five countries will account for more than half of all under-five deaths — India (17 per cent), Nigeria (15 per cent), Pakistan (8 per cent), Democratic Republic of the Congo (7 per cent) and Angola (5 per cent).
According to UNICEF, if mortality rates stay at the present day levels, 69 million children will die before the age of 5 during the next 15 years; about half of those children will die within their first month of life.
According to their latest estimates, released in the side lines of the Global Maternal Health Conference in Mexico, in 2015, 5.9 million children will die before the age of 5 globally.
Based on current population projections, 6.6 million children will die worldwide in 2030 if rates remain at 2015 levels.
Of these under-five deaths, nearly a third will be in South Asia.
The warning comes weeks after UNICEF revealed that one in every 21 children being born in India are dying before reaching their fifth birthday as the country recorded the highest number of under five deaths in 2015 globally.
The under-five mortality rate (U5MR) in India is about seven times higher than in high-income countries where 1 in 147 is dying.
A study published in the Lancet showed that 1 in 5 under five deaths took place in India in 2015 (20% of the global deaths) – numbering to 1.2 million children.
There was also a silver lining to it – U5MR in India dropped from 126 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 48 in 2015 – a 62% reduction. This is higher than the average global reduction of 53%.
Infectious diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhoea are still main killers of children under age five in India.
In 2015, pneumonia is estimated to account for about 15% of the 1.2 million under-five deaths in India. Diarrhoea accounts for about 9%.
UNICEF says that 70% of the global decline in under- five deaths since 2000 is attributable to tackling key infectious diseases. Between 2000 and 2015, the annual number of under-five deaths fell from almost 10 million to 5.9 million.
Although infectious diseases still cause a large — and largely preventable — portion of child mortality, the annual number of under-five deaths from leading infectious diseases declined from 5.4 million to 2.5 million over the last 15 years. In 2015, nearly 4 million fewer children under 5 will die from all causes than in 2000.
The report said "About 70% of that decline is the result of lower death tolls from pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, sepsis, pertussis, tetanus, meningitis, measles and AIDS".