The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, United Nations

The number of children who die before their fifth birthday fell below 10 million in 2006, but much more still needed to be done, said a report by the UN's children's agency UNICEF released Monday. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report attributed the progress in children's mortality rates largely to improvements in healthcare.

By comparison, an estimated 20 million children under five were dying every year at the beginning of the 1960s. But UNICEF's executive director, Ann Veneman, pointed out that "much more must be done" and "if we do so, we can help create a better world for girls and boys, and for generations to come." More than 500,000 women still die every year, for example, as a result of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, about half of whom die in sub-Saharan Africa, the report said.