UNICEF cites child health progress, work remains

UNICEF cites child health progress, work remains
A woman lies with her malnourished one-year-old son at an emergency feeding clinic in the town of Tahoua in northwestern Niger, August 1, 2005. Progress in expanding breast-feeding and fighting measles and malaria has improved the health of children worldwide, but many in developing nations still don't have enough to eat, UNICEF said on Sunday. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Progress in expanding breast-feedingand fighting measles and malaria has improved the health ofchildren worldwide, but many in developing nations still don'thave enough to eat, UNICEF said on Sunday.
The United Nations Children's Fund released a report onglobal child health, citing some strides while pointing topersistent problems in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.
"We're seeing some significant progress in a number ofareas in different parts of the world," Alan Court, UNICEFchief of programs, told reporters. "There's a lot more to do."
UNICEF reported in September that annual global deaths ofchildren under age 5 fell below the 10 million mark in 2006, to9.7 million, for the first time on record, marking a reductionof about 60 percent in the under-5 mortality rate since 1960.
More women are following advice to exclusively breast-feedtheir babies for the first six months of life.
About 37 percent of babies in developing country are beingexclusively breast-fed, up from 33 percent a decade earlier,according to the report. In sub-Saharan Africa, the rate was 30percent, up from 22 percent a decade ago.
Breast-feeding provides nutritional benefits that can avert13 percent of deaths of children under 5 in developingcountries, the report said.
Countries beset with the mosquito-borne disease malariahave expanded the use of a key prevention tool among children-- insecticide-treated bed nets, with many countries at leasttripling coverage between since 2000, the report said.
Court also cited figures released last week showing thatmeasles deaths fell by 91 percent in Africa between 2000 and2006 due to an initiative to vaccinate children.
More than four times as many children in 2005 compared to1999 received the recommended two doses of vitamin Asupplementation, which can cut a child's risk of death fromcommon illnesses, according to the report.
UNICEF said fewer children in the developing world areunderweight, down from 32 to 27 percent in the developing worldsince 1990, but 143 million children under 5 still suffer fromunder-nutrition, with more than half of them in South Asia.
More than 500,000 women die annually from complications ofchildbirth and pregnancy -- about half in sub-Saharan Africa,where a pregnant woman has a 1 in 22 chance of dying, comparedto 1 in 8,000 in industrialized countries, the report showed.
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Alan Elsner)