Neonatal death, drugs, strokes

UK lags behind in preventing neonatal death

Lancet (2014) doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60497-9

By global standards, the UK has very low rates of childhood death. Yet childhood mortality in the UK remains higher than in many other Western European countries, a new global analysis shows.

Guinea-Bissau, in West Africa, had the highest death rate among children less than five years of age: 152.5 per 1000 births in 2013. During the same year, 3800 children less than five years of age died in the UK. The UK's mortality rate for children aged 0-4 years was 4.9 per 1000 births, more than double that in Iceland (2.4 per 1000 births). Singapore had the world's lowest child mortality rate: 2.3 per 1000 births.