In its report The State of the World’s Children 2008 – Child Survival, released yesterday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reveals that Brazil reduced infant mortality (the number of babies dying before the age of one year) by more than half between 1990 and 2006, from 48 deaths per thousand live births to 19.

The figures for child mortality (children dying before the age of five) were similarly encouraging, with a fall from 57 deaths per thousand live births in 1990 to 20 in 2006.

This represents a rate of progress above the global average, and shows that Brazil is already very close to achieving the fourth UN Millennium Development Goal, that of reducing child mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.

The report emphasizes the important contribution made by the network of community health workers established in Brazil in the 1980s as part of the Programa Saúde da Família (Family Health Programme), a comprehensive primary-health-care initiative.

The report also makes clear, however, that there are significant differences in child mortality between different regions of Brazil and between different ethnic and racial groups.

The State of the World’s Children 2008 report is available in several languages from www.unicef.org/sowc08

Source: Embassy of Brazil in London