Today.Az » Society » Azerbaijan leading among CIS countries for children's death rate
22 September 2008 [14:07] - Today.Az
UNICEF has released a report (The State of the World's Children 2008) about the state of children in the world.
The report says that through the past 20 years the children's death rate has dropped by 27%. For example, 9.2 mln children at the age of up to 5 years died in 2007, which is 60% lower as compared to 1960 (12.7 mln).
The drop in the death rate is recorded in all regions of the world. The children's death rate in the Central and Eastern Europe was reduced by 50% as compared to 1990. In Central, Eastern Europe and CIS states 26 out out of 1000 (55 in 1990) die. For comparison, in the industrially developed countries, 6 out of 1,000 children die, in the countries of Asian-Pacific region -28, Latin America - 27 and Near East - 46.
The situation is quite different in poor countries: the frustrating record was set in Sierra-Leone, where 270 out of 1000 newborns die before they reach the age 5 years. The first top five countries, where the situation is the poorest, include Angola, Afghanistan, Niger and Liberia (235 deaths).
The former USSR countries occupy the following positions: Azerbaijan (46th place, 88 out of 1000 children do not reach the age of 5 years), Tajikistan (57 and 68 respectively), Turkmenistan (67, 51), Uzbekistan (69, 43), Kyrgyzstan (71, 41), Georgia (86, 32), Kazakhstan (92, 29), Armenia and Ukraine (101, 24), Moldova (116, 19), Russia (125, 18), Belarus (135, 13), Latvia (148, 9), Lithuania (151, 8), Estonia (157, 7).
The best situation is recorded in Sweden, Singapore, San-Marino, Lichtenstein, Iceland and Andorra (all on the 189th place), which account for 3 cases of death among 1,000 children.
The United States is on the 151th place (8 cases), To compare, Israel (167, 5), Cuba (157, 7), Kuqait (143, 11), China (101, 24), Saudi Arabia (97, 25), Iran (83, 34), India (49, 76).
The authors of the report list poverty, which does not allow people to get proper nutrition and medical aid, as a main cause of death among children. Pneumonia, malaria, diarrhea, AIDS and so on remain the main killers of underage children. Deficit of nutrition is responsible for the death of every third child.
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