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A doctor examines a baby in Somalia: Most infant and young child deaths could be prevented with medical care
Photo: Eva-Maria Krafczyk / picture alliance / dpa
The numbers are frightening: according to the United Nations (UN), far too many young people around the world are still dying from treatable diseases or injuries.
The reason for this is that they do not have good medical care.
According to a new estimate, around five million children under the age of five will die worldwide in 2021, the UN reported on Tuesday.
Another 2.1 million children, adolescents and young adults died between the ages of 5 and 24.
This corresponds to one death worldwide every 4.4 seconds.
There were also 1.9 million stillbirths.
"Access to good health care remains a matter of life and death for children worldwide," according to the UN.
There was progress between 2000 and 2021: the mortality rate for children under the age of five fell by 50 percent, that of the elderly up to the age of 24 by 36 percent and the number of stillbirths by 35 percent.
Nevertheless: If mothers had been better looked after during pregnancy and childbirth and young people had had access to good health care, most of the deaths could have been avoided, said the United Nations Children's Fund Unicef.
Additional investments are needed in basic medical care for all women and children.
Children in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are particularly at risk.
"It is profoundly unfair that a child's chances of survival can be determined solely by where they are born, and that there are such inequalities in access to life-saving health services," said Anshu Banerjee, director of the Division of Maternal Health at the World Health Organization (WHO). , newborns, children and adolescents.
asc/dpa