Slow progress in reducing child mortality rates

A new report by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has said half of the world's countries, including Yemen, are making insufficient progress towards Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4, which aims to reduce the global under-five mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.

[Watch IRIN video on child labour in Yemen]

The report ranked Yemen the 41st worst country in terms of its under-five child mortality rate, which is 100 deaths per 1,000 live births, while the infant mortality rate (under one) is 75 per 1,000.

[Read this report in Arabic]

Some 84,000 children under five die every year in Yemen, which is equivalent to 250 deaths every day.

The State of the World's Children is an annual report issued by UNICEF. This year's report was released on 22 January and entitled Child Survival.

UNICEF representative in Yemen Aboudou Karimu Adjibade said this year the State of the World's Children brings into sharp focus issues surrounding child survival and "where we stand".

"Many Yemeni children and women are victims of neglect, abuse, and exploitation. Discrimination prevails throughout the life cycle. The cumulative impact of some of these harmful practices is reflected in one of the highest rates of malnutrition among children, a very high maternal mortality rate, and we find Yemen trailing on the Human Development Index, sometimes even behind countries that have even worse economic indicators," Adjibade said.

According to him, the report goes beyond the numbers to suggest actions and initiatives that should lead to further progress. "Each day we are still seeing 26,000 under fives die around the world, mostly from preventable causes. Nearly all of them live in developing countries and Yemen is among them," he said.

Yemeni Minister of Health Abdul-Karim Rasei said Yemen had made progress in reducing child mortality by increasing vaccination against polio and measles: "In 2005, 1,200 children died of measles but in 2007 no case was reported. Four hundred cases of polio were reported in 2005 but since February 2006 no case has been reported," he said, calling on the World Health Organization and UNICEF to conduct a new survey on child mortality in Yemen.

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