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- THE frequent death of children before their fifth birthday is both a disaster for their parents and one of the most reliable indicators of country-wide poverty.
- Advancements in neo-natal medicine and vaccination programmes have meant that great strides have been made across both the rich and emerging world in reducing the rate of child mortality.
- For example, in 1970s Mali, 37% of children born did not reach their fifth birthday. In 2010, that rate stood at a markedly lower 18%.
- One of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals requires that by 2015, developing countries should reduce their under-five mortality rate to one-third of where it stood in 1990.
- Just 17 countries had met that target in 2010; notable among them were Brazil, Egypt and Turkey.
- While China, with 13% of the world's 636m children under five, is on course to meet the goal by 2015, it will be among only an additional 23 countries to do so, leaving 101 countries set to miss the target.
