Children deaths up in wake of pandemic

UN Agencies have warned that the Covid-19 pandemic was threatening to reverse decades of progress in eliminating preventable child deaths around the world.

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, according to new mortality estimates released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the World Bank Group.