Worldwide child fatalities hits record low

UNICEF said today that a record has been reached in the world of tracking children fatalities on a worldwide basis. For the first time ever, worldwide child deaths dropped to below the 10 million level.

The possible reasons for such a decrease? UNICEF pegged the causes as vitamin supplementation, insect nets (strange) and increase vaccination levels for children particularly living in poor countries. From 1990's 13 million fatality rate, 2005's 9.7 million rate is quite a decrease indeed.

Now, UNICEF's data comes form government-conducted surveys in more than 50 countries back from 2005 to last year, and the variation in all that data should cause these decreases to off the mark to some level (which will probably always be unknown). But with the increasing population of the world, it's comforting to know that many kids are surviving in it.