UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The number of children under the age of five who die annually fell to less than 7 million in 2011, but around 19,000 boys and girls around the world are still dying every day from largely preventable causes, the U.N. children's agency said in a report released Wednesday night.

The report by the United Nations Children's Fund said that four-fifths of under-five deaths last year occurred in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. More than half the pneumonia and diarrhea deaths — which together account for almost 30 percent of under-five deaths worldwide — occur in just four countries: Congo, India, Nigeria and Pakistan, it said.

"Given the prospect that these regions, especially sub-Saharan Africa, will account for the bulk of the world's births in the next years, we must give new impetus to the global momentum to reduce under-five deaths," UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said in the report.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.