Child mortality, also known as child death, refers to the death of children under the age of 14. It includes neonatal mortality, under-5 mortality, and mortality of children aged 5–14.
Child mortality is a scientific way to talk about death. In real everyday language, though, it is about families and how they manage to survive day after day. There are still too many children under five (around 15,000) who die every day from preventable causes. Child mortality is also about how these children live, whether their parents can spend the time with them rather than working a second or a third job to survive.
The highest rates of child mortality are still in Africa—where one out of every nine children dies before turning five. Imagine how that might feel for each of the families…
The good news is that millions of children have better chances of surviving than in 1990. But it is still not enough.
Despite the global progress in reducing child mortality over the past few decades, about 5.3 million children under age five died in 2018.
If families are under so much pressure that young children die, then governments have to find solutions to the problem. More so, they should talk to their people, their citizens, about their plans.