- September 10, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic —— the lives of millions of children and youth at risk
Essential health services that provide immunizations, newborn care and life-saving treatment for diseases are being disrupted due to the impacts of the pandemic, threatening to roll back decades of progress in reducing child mortality.
According to the latest child mortality estimates
(https://data.unicef.org/resources/levels-and-trends-in-child-mortality/) released by UN IGME
(https://childmortality.org/about) today, the number of global under-five deaths dropped to 5.2 million in 2019, from 12.5 million in 1990.
Essential services have played a large role in saving millions of these lives over the years.
Measures taken by governments to contain and mitigate the pandemic are having persistent and far-reaching impacts on children’s lives.
A UNICEF survey ——
(https://data.unicef.org/resources/rapid-situation-tracking-covid-19-socioeconomic-impacts-data-viz/) conducted in July across 77 countries found that almost 68 per cent of countries reported at least some disruption in health checks for children and immunization services.
Read the report “Levels and Trends in Child Mortality” (https://data.unicef.org/resources/levels-and-trends-in-child-mortality/)
Explore the data (https://data.unicef.org/resources/dataset/child-mortality/)
Access the UNICEF survey dashboard on the disruption of essential services (https://data.unicef.org/resources/rapid-situation-tracking-covid-19-socioeconomic-impacts-data-viz/)
For the first time, the report “Levels and Trends in Child Mortality” also presents mortality estimates among older adolescents and youth aged 15–24.
Maintaining progress in saving child lives will require the mobilization of our resources to continue monitoring the direct and indirect impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children. We must work together so that decades of work are not undone.
Contact ——
Mark Hereward
Associate Director, Data & Analytics
Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring
UNICEF
