The number of children, under the age of five, dying in India, reduced by 55 per cent from 1990 to 2012, says a recent report.
A September 2013 Report by UNICEF- ‘Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed,’ suggests that a lot more can be done to lower the Infant Mortality Rate in India. The report says that to reach the ‘Millennium Development Goal 4’(MDG 4), which seeks to reduce the global under-five mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, the pace of reduction would need to quadruple in the period from 2013 to 2015.
And even if the world were to achieve MDG 4 on time,15 million children under 5 would still die between 2013 and 2015, mostly from preventable causes. To achieve MDG 4 by 2015, an additional 3.5 million childrens lives must be saved between 2013 and 2015 above the current trend rate. India has to save 4.5 lakh more children in order to meet the MDG 4 requirement.
Four-fifths of all child deaths occur in just 26 countries, and half of all deaths of children below the age of 5 occur in just five countries-India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and China. The report lists the main causes of infant mortality worldwide as neonatal, diarrhoea, pneumonia, and malaria.
It also lists ten promises as strategies to achieve the promise of saving the lives of children including breast feeding in the first six months, eliminating violence, giving oral rehydration salts as well as zinc supplements, immunization, clean water and proper nutrition and hygiene.