But the latest figures from the United Nations Childens Fund UNICEF show an unacceptably high rate of 21 children under five dying every minute.

Half of these are in sub Sahara Africa.

The heartbreaking message from the UNICEF figures is that the six major causes of deaths of children under five are entirely preventable.

These are diarrhea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery and lack of oxygen at birth.

The children deaths numbers  don’t  meet the Millennium Development Goal of a two-thirds reduction to 31 per 1 000 live births.

The geographic inequality in child mortality is illustrated by the reality that an Ethiopian child is 30 times more likely to die before his or her fifth birthday than a child in Western Europe.

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