United Nations Radio

Progress in cutting the number of deaths among children under five is still "grossly insufficient" in some parts of the world.

A new report Thursday showed there has been a fall of 28% in child deaths since 1990.

But UNICEF warns many poorer countries will not meet the Millennium Development Goal of cutting that figure by two thirds by the year 2015.

Last year, 9.2 million children aged under five died across the world.

The report says the situation is worse in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.

Miranda Elles is a Spokesperson for UNICEF in Geneva:

"A number of countries have made particularly good progress in reducing under five mortality including Lao, PDR, Bangladesh, Bolivia and Nepal; - each of which have reduced their under- five mortality by more than 50 per cent since 1990. The highest child mortality rate s still found in Africa unfortunately. For example, in Sierra Leone- the country with the worst under- five rate in the world, 262 out of every 1,000 children die before their 5th birthday."

Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean and East Asia and the Pacific countries have cut deaths among under-fives by 50% since 1990. But over the same period deaths in sub-Saharan Africa have fallen by just 22% on average.

This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.

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