UNITED NATIONS, Sept 13: The global mortality rate for young children has been nearly halved in the past two decades, but Africa and South Asia have not kept pace, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The number of infants and children who die before reaching the age of five has dropped from 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011, according to the UN Children’s Fund, Unicef. However, “any satisfaction at these gains is tempered by the unfinished business that remains,” said Unicef’s executive director, Anthony Lake.

The biggest improvement in child health has been recorded in Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia and the Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. These regions have cut the child death rate by half since 1990.

Under-five deaths are now increasingly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which now account for 80 per cent of the world total, said the Unicef report, titled “Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed.”

South Asia accounts for about a third of total under-five deaths each year.

India (24 per cent of the total), Nigeria (11 per cent), Democratic Republic of Congo (seven per cent), Pakistan (five per cent) and China (four per cent) make up half of the total number of world deaths between them.

Unicef said poverty was not the only decisive factor in deaths. Children are more likely to die early if they are born in a rural area or if their mother has not had primary education. Conflict and political instability also hit child health prospects.—AFP