Health Facts

90 percent of child deaths worldwide occur within the first year of life. Learn more facts about the health challenges that impoverished children are facing.

Health Facts
Health FactsGet the facts about the health challenges that impoverished children and their families are facing.
  • Malaria kills approximately 1 million children per year, many of them under age 5 and most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • In developing countries, one in every six infants is not immunized against tuberculosis.
  • While the number of deaths due to measles fell dramatically between 2000 and 2007, one in every four children in developing countries is not immunized against measles.
  • Only 55 percent of the world's infants are fully immunized against hepatitis B.
  • Only 69 percent of newborns are protected against tetanus.
  • Malaria, together with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, is one of the major public health challenges undermining development in the poorest countries in the world.
  • There are 1.8 million diarrheal-related deaths per year among young children.
  • Children under age 5 account for less than 10 percent of the world's population, but suffer from 40 percent of the diseases attributed to environmental factors.
  • Acute respiratory infections annually kill an estimated 2 million children under the age of 5.
  • About 1.8 million people, most of whom are children, die annually of food-borne diseases.
  • Approximately 37 percent of deaths among children under 5 — 9.7 million worldwide in 2006 — occur in the first month of life.