By Cyrill Engmann, Clinical Professor of Global Health
Around the world, more children are surviving than ever before, according to a new report from an inter-agency group led by UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). Deaths of children under the age of five have been nearly halved since 2000. Yet we still lost 5.3 million children under the age of five last year. More than 290,000 mothers also lost their lives during pregnancy or childbirth according to the latest estimates, which greatly increases the risk of their children dying.
Let me take a moment to put that into perspective: 5.3 million is greater than the entire population of South Carolina. Put another way, 5.3 million children dying each year is equivalent to an airplane carrying 300 children crashing every 30 minutes, every day last year. Imagine if that happened?
The world would be heartbroken, outraged, moved to action. And yet, children are dying every day and it barely makes the news headlines. As a practicing pediatrician who has committed his life to reducing inequity in maternal and child health in the U.S. and globally, I know these deaths are unacceptable because they are largely preventable.
Read the entire story at The Hill.