Child mortality
Target 3.2 states that "by 2030, the goal is to end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age with all countries aiming to reduce under‑5 mortality to as low as 25 per 1,000 live births.
[3] About 80 percent of these occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and just 6 countries account for half of all under-five deaths: China, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
[14] Most of the children who die each year could be saved by low-tech, evidence-based, cost-effective measures such as vaccines, antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation, insecticide-treated bed nets, improved family care and breastfeeding practices,[15] and oral rehydration therapy.
[16] Empowering women, removing financial and social barriers to accessing basic services, developing innovations that make the supply of critical services more available to the poor and increasing local accountability of health systems are policy interventions that have allowed health systems to improve equity and reduce mortality.
[17] In developing countries, child mortality rates related to respiratory and diarrheal diseases can be reduced by introducing simple behavioral changes such as handwashing with soap.
[3] Essential newborn care - including immunizing mothers against tetanus, ensuring clean delivery practices in a hygienic birthing environment, drying and wrapping the baby immediately after birth, providing necessary warmth and promoting immediate and continued breastfeeding, immunization, and treatment of infections with antibiotics - could save the lives of 3 million newborns annually.
Improved sanitation and access to clean drinking water can reduce childhood infections and diarrhea.
As of 2017[update], approximately 26% of the world's population do not have access to basic sanitation and 785 million people use unsafe sources of drinking water.
[20] Agencies promoting and implementing child survival activities worldwide include UNICEF and non-governmental organizations; major child survival donors worldwide include the World Bank, the British Government's Department for International Development, the Canadian International Development Agency and the United States Agency for International Development.
In the United States, most non-governmental child survival agencies belong to the CORE Group, a coalition working through collaborative action to save the lives of young children in the world's poorest countries.
In order to reduce child mortality rates, there need to be better education, higher standards of healthcare and more caution in childbearing.
Child mortality could be reduced by attendance of professionals at birth and by breastfeeding and through access to clean water, sanitation, and immunization.
[3] 6 countries account for half of the global under-5 deaths, namely, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and China.
[3] Within low- and middle-income countries, there is also substantial variation in child mortality rates across administrative divisions.
[27] A large team of researchers published a major study on the global distribution of child mortality in Nature in October 2019.
