7,000 newborns die every day across the world: UN report

At least 7,000 newborns die every day across the world, says a new report by the UN.

Washington, Oct 20: According to a latest report of the United Nations (UN), despite a drop in under-five mortality rate, at least 7,000 newborns die every day across the world.

As far as India is concerned, the country has witnessed 66 per cent decline in the under-five mortality rate from 1990 to 2015 but most of the new-born deaths--24 per cent of all--still occur in the country, according to the new UN report.

With the reduction, India has met one of its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets of curbing by two-thirds the under-five death rate, according to the survey--Levels and Trends in Child Mortality 2017--by the UN. The report was released globally on Thursday.

More must be done to stop babies from dying the day they are born, UN agencies said in the new report, which argued that life-saving know-how and technologies must be made readily available--particularly in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa--where they are most needed.

Although the number of children dying before age five is at a new low--5.6 million in 2016 compared with nearly 9.9 million in 2000--the proportion of newborn deaths during that period has jumped from 41 to 46 per cent--or 7,000 babies.

This is according to the report released by the Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME)--comprised of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and the Population Division in the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs.

"The lives of 50 million children under-five have been saved since 2000, a testament to the serious commitment by governments and development partners to tackle preventable child deaths," said Stefan Swartling Peterson, UNICEF chief of health, in a press statement.

"But without a greater effort to stop babies from dying the day they are born, or days after their birth, this progress will remain incomplete. We have the knowledge and technologies that are required--we just need to take them where they are most needed," he added.

Current trends suggest that between 2017 and 2030, 30 million newborns will die within first 28 days of life. As such, the agencies stress that measures must be taken to achieve universal health coverage and ensure that more newborns survive and thrive, including by serving marginalised families.

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