Child mortality rate in India sharply declined between 1990-2019: United Nation

India’s child deathrate has declined substantially between 1990 and 2019 but the country, along side Nigeria, still accounted for nearly a 3rd of all under-five deaths last year, consistent with a replacement UN report which warned that COVID-19 pandemic threatens to undo decades of progress in eliminating preventable child deaths globally.

The Levels & Trends in Child Mortality’ Report 2020 said that the amount of worldwide under-five deaths dropped to its lowest point on record in 2019 right down to 5.2 million from 12.5 million in 1990.

Over the past 30 years, health services to stop or treat causes of kid death like preterm, low birth weight, complications during birth, neonatal sepsis, pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria, also as vaccination, have played an outsized role in saving many lives.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in major disruptions to health services that threaten to undo decades of hard-won progress toward eliminating preventable child deaths.

According to the new mortality estimates released by UNICEF, the planet Health Organization (WHO), the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and therefore the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Group, the under-five deathrate (deaths per 1,000 live births) in India declined to 34 in 2019 from 126 in 1990.

The country registered a 4.5 per cent annual rate of reduction in under-five mortality between 1990-2019. the amount of under-five deaths in India dropped from 3.4 million in 1990 to 824,000 in 2019.

The infant deathrate rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) in India declined from 89 in 1990 to twenty-eight last year, with the country registering 679000 infant deaths last year, a big decline from 2.4 million infant deaths in 1990.

The country also witnessed a decrease in neonatal mortality rate 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 five in 2019 (447,000 deaths in 1990 to 136,000 deaths in 2019) and therefore the probability of dying among youth aged 15 24 years dipped from 24 to 10 (407,000 deaths to 246,000 deaths) between the amount under review.
The sex-specific under-five deathrate (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.

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 worldwide 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 quite 80 per cent of the 5.2 million global under-five deaths in 2019, but they only accounted for 52 per cent of the worldwide under-five population.

Nearly half (49 per cent) of all under-five deaths in 2019 occurred in only five countries: Nigeria, India, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. Nigeria and India alone account for nearly a 3rd , the report said.