Context: As per UN released ‘The Levels & Trends in Child Mortality’ Report 2020 the number of global under-five deaths dropped to its lower point on record in 2019 down to 5.2 million from 12.5 million in 1990.
Key Points

• India’s child mortality rate has declined substantially between 1990 and 2019 but the country still accounted for almost a third of all under-five deaths last year.
• ‘Levels and Trends in Child Mortality’ report is released by the United Nations inter-agency group for child mortality.

Global Highlights of the report

• The report warned that COVID-19 pandemic threatens to undo decades of progress in eliminating preventable child deaths globally.
• The report said that the number of global under-five deaths dropped to its lowest point on record in 2019 – down to 5.2 million from 12.5 million in 1990.
• The regions of Central and Southern Asia and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand) both saw a faster decline in under-five mortality from 2010-2019 compared to 2000-2009.
• However, the global burden of under-five deaths weighs most heavily on just two regions – sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia.
• The report said that about 53 per cent of all under-five deaths in 2019 – 2.8 million – occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, and roughly 1.5 million children (28 per cent) died in 2019 before reaching age 5 in Central and Southern Asia.
• These two regions alone accounted for more than 80 per cent of the 5.2 million global under-five deaths in 2019, but they only accounted for 52 per cent of the global under-five population.
• Nearly half (49 per cent) of all under-five deaths in 2019 occurred in just five countries: Nigeria, India, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. Nigeria and India alone account for almost a third.

India specific highlights

• The under-five mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) in India declined to 34 in 2019 from 126 in 1990.
• India registered a 4.5 per cent annual rate of reduction in under-five mortality between 1990-2019.
• The number of under-five deaths in India dropped from 3.4 million in 1990 to 824,000 in 2019.
• The infant mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) in India declined from 89 in 1990 to 28 last year, with the country registering 679000 infant deaths last year, a significant decline from 2.4 million infant deaths in 1990.
• The country also witnessed a decrease in neonatal mortality rate between 1990 and 2019 from 57 to 22 – 1.5 million neonatal deaths in 1990 to 522,000 deaths in 2019.
• Further, the probability of dying among children aged 5–14 years declined from 21 in 1990 to 5 in 2019 and the probability of dying among youth aged 15–24 years dipped from 24 to 10 between the period under review.
• The sex-specific under-five mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) in India in 1990 stood at 122 males and 131 females and this declined to 34 males and 35 females in 2019.

Threat of COVID-19 on child and maternal health services

• The report released by UNICEF adds that the countries worldwide have now been experiencing the disruptions in child and maternal health services such as vaccinations, health check-ups, and pre-natal and post-natal care because of the resource constraints and a general uneasiness of using health services due to the fear of getting Coronavirus.
• As per the UNICEF Executive Director, the global community has come too far towards eliminating the child deaths to allow the COVID-19 pandemic to stop us in our tracks.
• Going on the current trends, about 48 million children under the age of 5 years will die between 2020 and 2030, half of them newborns. More than half of these 48 million deaths will occur in Sub-Saharan Africa and around 25% in Central and Southern Asia.