India tops the list of highest
mortality rate of under –five children in 2011 a new United Nations Global
Estimate on child mortality reports.
About 16.55 lakh children
below the age of five died in India in 2011 that is 6 times higher than China.
China has reported the death of around 2.49 lakh children under the age of
five.
In 2011 around 50% of the
global under five deaths occurred in five countries - India, Nigeria, Congo,
Pakistan and China.
According to the report, though
India has made a lot of progress with a 48% decline in death rate its
performance was much lower than poorer countries such as Bangladesh, Rwanda,
Nepal and Malawi.
While Bangladesh reported
decline of 66.9%, Nepal reported a fall of 64.3%. This shows that the total
number of under five child deaths was highest in India when compared to
neighboring countries. The official sources say that the budget for children
has increased manifold since the 1990s, the situation is bad in 200 backward
districts regarding child mortality.
Globally the under five-child
mortality rate has come down from nearly 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in
2011.
