Announced last week by the World Health Organization and other health agencies, a new report on global childhood mortality rates has some encouraging news: They re declining.
In 2011, fewer than seven million children worldwide died before their fifth birthday. The new figures show the continuation of a positive trend, as these rates have been declining since 1990, when nearly 12 million children in that age group died.
The leading cause of death was pneumonia, followed by premature birth, diarrhea, birth complications, and malaria.
Obviously, all public health parameters are rising worldwide as science-based efforts penetrate less developed regions, says ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross, who was optimistic about the study s findings. I am most pleased, of course, with the decline in children's malaria deaths, which has been reported several times over the past year or so.
In addition to the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and improved nutrition, more effective medical interventions are also responsible for the decrease in childhood mortality. For instance, rotavirus, a very common gastrointestinal infection in children, causes 500,000 infant and children deaths annually. In areas without clean water or IV fluid replenishment, most childhood deaths result from diarrhea-induced dehydration caused by the virus.
We re pleased to note, then, that one of of our trustees, Dr. Paul Offit, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children s Hospital of Philadelphia, was co-inventor of RotaTeq, one of the two vaccines against rotavirus that continues to save children s lives worldwide.
Given that most of the causes of childhood death are preventable, requiring inexpensive interventions, the hope is that such care will continue to reach an even greater number of children in the future.
