Decrease in child mortality reported

Chhay Channyda and Brooke Lewis

Phnom Penh Post

CAMBODIA has made dramatic progress in reducing death rates for children younger than 5, and has already met the national Millennium Development Goal for child mortality, according to findings in a new global study.

The findings, however, are much lower than government estimates, and were met with scepticism by local health officials on Monday.

The study, published in the medical journal The Lancet on Monday, concluded that there were 12 deaths per 1,000 children aged between 1 and 5, and 24.5 deaths per l,000 infants younger than 1.

The 2008 national census pegged the mortality rates at 83 per 1,000 children aged between 1 and 5, and 65 per 1,000 infants, a health official said Monday.

The authors of the report concluded that there had been a dramatic global decrease in child mortality, with deaths dropping from 11.9 million in 1990 to an estimated 7.7 million in 2010, but added that the decline would need to be accelerated in order to reach the UN’s goal of cutting child mortality by two-thirds by 2015.

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