Around 4.9 million children under five died in 2024, says UN

LONDON — About 4.9 million children died before reaching their fifth birthday in 2024, according to new United Nations estimates, a sign progress to reduce child mortality rates was stalling even before global aid budget cuts last year.

Most of the deaths were preventable with better access to healthcare and low-cost interventions for challenges like complications from pre-term birth or diseases like malaria, said UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the UN population division, which produced the report.

Preventable child deaths have more than halved since 2000, the agencies said, but progress has slowed since 2015.

In 2022, the figure was also 4.9 million, then a record-low; in 2023, it was 4.8 million. While the 2024 number appears to show a rise, the agencies said the data was calculated differently in the two different years, and could not be directly compared.

GLOBAL SLOWDOWN IN REDUCING CHILD MORTALITY RATES
“However… we do see a global slowdown in mortality reduction,” a WHO spokesperson added, warning that conflict, economic instability, climate change, and weak health systems were all contributing to stalling progress. Aid cuts would add to the challenge, she said.

“Together, these pressures risk undermining past achievements and could lead to stagnation – or even reversal – in hard-won child survival gains if not addressed,” she said.

The figures released on Wednesday cover 2024, before the United States, followed by other big donors like the United Kingdom and Germany, began cutting their international aid budgets.

Overall, global development assistance for health fell by just under 27% in 2025 compared to 2024, according to a report by the Gates Foundation at the end of 2025. The foundation warned then that progress on child mortality was going into reverse as a result of the cuts, based on its estimates.

“No child should die from diseases that we know how to prevent. But we see worrying signs that progress in child survival is slowing – and at a time where we’re seeing further global budget cuts,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. The agencies said the cuts could also make it harder to track progress due to weakened data collection.

The report is based on UN data as well as estimates from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. — Reuters