The U.N. children's fund says infant morality around the world has dropped nearly 30 percent during the past two decades. But that improvement in child survival is far smaller in West and Central Africa where growing populations are straining health services.
Children salvage a failed harvest of potatoes, at the parent farm in Laikipia District, some 200 kilometers from the capital city of Nairobi, Kenya, 17 Aug 2009
The new U.N. estimates on deaths of children under five shows an 18-percent decline in West and Central Africa since 1990. It is good news, but only to a point as the rate of that decline does not appear to be accelerating, and health officials fear that larger populations mean the actual number of infants dying in the region may be growing.
"The decline is there. It is not as much as other regions in the world. It reflects high population and high fertility," said Martin Dawes, the chief of communications for UNICEF in West and Central Africa.
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