Child mortality: Millennium Goal set to be badly missed, says study

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — The world will fall badly short of meeting the UN Millennium Development Goal on child mortality, according to a study of trends published by The Lancet on Saturday.

The fourth goal in the UN's famous Millennium list called for a worldwide decline of 67 percent in the deaths of children aged under five compared with 1990 levels.

The paper, lead-authored by Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, says that the world is on course for a reduction of only 27 percent by 2015.

Regions in Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East and Europe have made steady progress, helped in many cases by falls in fertility.

The big problem occurs in sub-Saharan Africa, where the decline in...