WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) released the following statement after the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) released their annual child mortality data. According to the 2015 report, there are now 5.9 million children under age 5 dying every year. While still a staggeringly high number, this is remarkable progress: since 1990, the figure has plummeted by more than half, even as the global population has increased. The report also shows there are still 16,000 children dying every single day.
The full UNICEF “Levels and Trends in Child Mortality 2015” report can be found here: http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_83078.html.
Coons and Collins recently introduced the Reach Every Mother and Child Act of 2015 to strengthen U.S. government efforts to end preventable deaths of mothers, newborns, and young children in developing nations around the world.
“UNICEF’s new data shows that we have made great strides in saving moms, babies, and kids in some of the poorest parts of the world, but far too many children are still dying from preventable causes,” said Senators Coons and Collins. “Our bipartisan bill would build on the remarkable progress already made by UNICEF and other international partners by reforming and scaling up interventions to have a larger short- and long-term impact. The Reach Act would increase interagency coordination and build new partnerships with the private sector to better implement U.S. government strategy with the goal of ending preventable maternal, newborn, and child deaths by 2035. The United States has been an essential leader in our progress to end maternal and child mortality so far, and we must continue to work together with our international partners to not just bring these numbers down, but to end preventable child deaths for good.”
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