Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Death rates for children under five have halved in some regions since 1990, but about 6.6 million still are thought to have died last year, according to a new report issued by UNICEF on Friday.
The U.N. Children's agency says the highest death rates are in Africa and Asia and nearly half of all children who die are in five countries: Nigeria, Congo, India, Pakistan and China. In West and Central Africa, there has been virtually no change in the number of children who die every year since 1990.
The U.N. says the top killers are pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria.
Solid numbers were only available from about half of the world's countries and experts used modeling techniques to estimate the number of deaths worldwide.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
