The world needs to improve the care of new-born babies to reduce the toll of child deaths, the World Health Organisation warns today.
Deaths of infants are falling globally – but nearly nine million died globally in 2008, according to new statistics.
About 40 per cent of the deaths occurred in the first month of life, WHO said.
WHO’s annual statistical reports says one third of child deaths are caused by malnutrition – and this has increased in some countries.
It says the reduction in child deaths has been fastest in Europe, the Americas and the Western Pacific.
While it has fallen by about five per cent a year in each of these regions, in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, the reduction has been less than two per cent a year.
Dr Ties Boerma, WHO’s statistics director, said conflict, poor government and repeated crises had caused problems in some countries.
He said: "Several low-income countries have made substantial progress in reducing child mortality, including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Rwanda."
He added: "The challenge is also to assist countries in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South-East Asia to get access to interventions such as insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria, or prevent malnutrition. Undernutrition is the underlying cause of a third of child deaths."
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