For this first time ever, the num­bers of chil­dren dying before their fifth birth­day each year are below 9 mil­lion. This stat accord­ing to new data from UNICEF.

Only four nations saw their rates of child mor­tal­ity increase, the nations are South Africa, Chad, Congo and Kenya.

From this New York Times story writ­ten by Celia Dug­ger, we read more of the staticists.

The child mor­tal­ity rate has declined by more than a quar­ter in the last two decades — to 65 per 1,000 live births last year from 90 in 1990 — in large part because of the widen­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion of rel­a­tively inex­pen­sive tech­nolo­gies, like measles vac­cines and anti-malaria mos­quito nets.

Other sim­ple prac­tices have helped, pub­lic health experts say, includ­ing a rise in breast-feeding alone for the first six months of life, which pro­tects chil­dren from diar­rhea caused by dirty water.

Wealthy nations, inter­na­tional agen­cies and phil­an­thropists like Bill and Melinda Gates have com­mit­ted bil­lions of dol­lars to the effort. School­child­ren and church groups have also pitched in, pay­ing for mos­quito nets and feed­ing programs.

Taken together, they have helped cut the num­ber of chil­dren under 5 who died last year to 8.8 mil­lion — the low­est since records were first kept in 1960, Unicef said — from 12.5 mil­lion in 1990.

“That’s 10,000 less chil­dren dying per day,” said Unicef’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, Ann M. Veneman.

Even so, there is still a long way to go before achiev­ing the goal set by lead­ers of 189 nations in 2000: to cut the child mor­tal­ity rate by two-thirds by 2015. Pneu­mo­nia and diar­rhea, the two lead­ing causes of child deaths, are still rel­a­tively neglected, espe­cially com­pared with malaria and measles, experts say.

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