About this Episode
The world still loses far too many children to preventable causes—but the long-term trend is one of the clearest pieces of good news in global health.
According to the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, 4.9 million children under the age of five died in 2022. That number is devastating, but it represents extraordinary progress: in 2000, almost 9.9 million children under five died. Since 1990, the annual number of deaths has fallen by 62%.
This progress has been driven by interventions that already exist: vaccines, better maternal and newborn care, access to antibiotics and other medicines, improved nutrition, malaria prevention, cleaner water and sanitation, and greater access to healthcare. The report stresses that these solutions can save even more lives if they reach every child.
There is still a huge amount of work to do. Nearly five million children dying before their fifth birthday is an enormous human tragedy, and progress is uneven between countries and regions. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to carry a disproportionately large share of the global burden.
But that is precisely what makes the achievement worth highlighting. This isn’t a prediction or a technological promise—it is decades of measurable progress. Millions of children who might once have died are now growing up.
And that may be one of the most important good-news stories in the world: when societies invest in basic healthcare and make proven solutions accessible, children survive.
