New York, United States (Web Desk): Over 14,000 babies were born in Pakistan on New Year’s Day, the United Nations children’s agency said in its ‘Levels & Trends in Child Mortality’ 2017 report.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that over 14,000 Pakistani babies among the approximately 386,000 who were born on Monday worldwide.
According to UNICEF, over half of these babies were born in nine developing countries, including India (69,070), China (44,760), Nigeria (20,210), Pakistan (14,910), Indonesia (13,370), the United States (11,280), the Democratic Republic of Congo (9,400), Ethiopia (9,020) and Bangladesh (8,370).
“This New Year, UNICEF’s resolution is to help give every child more than an hour, more than a day, more than a month more than survival,” Stefan Peterson, UNICEF’s Chief of Health, said. “We call on governments and partners to join the fight to save millions of children’s lives by providing proven, low-cost solutions.”
Over the past two decades, the agency said the world has seen unprecedented progress in child survival, halving the number of children worldwide who die before their fifth birthday to 5.6 million in 2016. But despite these advances, there has been slower progress for newborns. Babies dying in the first month account for 46 per cent of all deaths among children under five, it said.
Next month, UNICEF said it will launch Every Child Alive, a global campaign to demand and deliver affordable, quality health care solutions for every mother and newborn. These include a steady supply of clean water and electricity at health facilities, the presence of a skilled health attendant during birth, disinfecting the umbilical cord, breastfeeding within the first hour after birth, and skin-to-skin contact between the mother and child.
“We are now entering the era when all the world’s newborns should have the opportunity to see the 22nd century,” Peterson added. “Unfortunately, nearly half of the children born this year likely won’t. A child born in Sweden in January 2018 is most likely to live to 2100, while a child from Somalia would be unlikely to live beyond 2075.”
