How Many Children Die Every Day and What Actually Kills Them
Around 13,700 children under five die every single day. Most of those deaths are preventable. Here is what the data shows — by cause, by country, and by what actually works.
There is a particular kind of silence in the data when you look at child mortality. The numbers are huge — thousands per day — but each one represents a life that barely got started. A child who was born, who breathed, who was held, and who died before their fifth birthday. There is no way to write about this without feeling the weight of it.
So let me lay the numbers out plainly, because the scale of this problem — and the progress we have made against it — deserves to be seen clearly.
The headline number
Approximately 5 million children under five die every year worldwide. That breaks down to:
| Time period | Child deaths (under 5) |
|---|---|
| Per year | 5,000,000 |
| Per month | 416,667 |
| Per week | 96,154 |
| Per day | 13,699 |
| Per hour | 571 |
| Per minute | 9.5 |
Nearly 10 children under the age of five die every single minute. You can watch this number tick upward on our child mortality live counter.
On top of that, roughly 2 million babies are stillborn each year, and another 2 million newborns die in their first month. The first 28 days of life — the neonatal period — are by far the most dangerous time to be alive. Nearly half of all under-five deaths happen in the first month.
What kills them
This is the part that should make you uncomfortable, because most of these causes are entirely preventable with treatments that cost less than a cup of coffee.
| Cause | Annual deaths | Share | Preventable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neonatal conditions (preterm, birth complications, sepsis) | 2,000,000 | 40% | Largely yes |
| Pneumonia | 700,000 | 14% | Yes — antibiotics + vaccines |
| Diarrhoeal diseases | 500,000 | 10% | Yes — clean water + ORS |
| Malaria | 400,000 | 8% | Yes — bed nets + treatment |
| Malnutrition (underlying cause) | 2,250,000 | 45% (note) | Yes — nutrition programmes |
| Measles | 100,000 | 2% | Yes — vaccination |
| HIV/AIDS | 75,000 | 1.5% | Yes — antiretrovirals |
| Injuries (drowning, falls, burns) | 300,000 | 6% | Partially |
| Other infections | 425,000 | 8.5% | Varies |
Malnutrition is listed separately because it acts as an underlying contributor rather than a direct cause. A malnourished child who catches pneumonia or diarrhoea is far more likely to die from it than a well-nourished child. Malnutrition is a factor in roughly 45% of all child deaths even when the recorded cause is something else.
For more on how neonatal conditions and diarrhoeal diseases rank among global killers, see our causes of death breakdown.
The big three
If you had to pick just three interventions that would save the most children, they would be:
- Better neonatal care — skilled birth attendants, neonatal intensive care, treatment of newborn sepsis. This alone addresses 40% of deaths.
- Oral rehydration therapy (ORS) for diarrhoea — a solution of salt, sugar, and water that costs about 5p per sachet. It is one of the most cost-effective medical interventions ever developed.
- Pneumonia treatment — antibiotics like amoxicillin, which cost less than £1 for a full course, cure most childhood pneumonia if given in time.
The tragedy is not that we do not know how to prevent these deaths. We know exactly how. The tragedy is that millions of children still die from causes we solved decades ago, because the solutions have not reached the places where they are needed most.
Where children are dying
Child mortality is overwhelmingly concentrated in two regions: sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Together they account for more than 80% of all child deaths.
| Country | Annual child deaths | Deaths per day | Under-5 mortality rate (per 1,000) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nigeria | 858,000 | 2,351 | 117 |
| India | 824,000 | 2,258 | 35 |
| Pakistan | 344,000 | 943 | 65 |
| DR Congo | 290,000 | 795 | 81 |
| Ethiopia | 177,000 | 485 | 49 |
| Tanzania | 108,000 | 296 | 50 |
| Bangladesh | 97,000 | 266 | 29 |
| Niger | 93,000 | 255 | 123 |
| Angola | 88,000 | 241 | 75 |
| Mali | 82,000 | 225 | 101 |
Now compare that with the countries where almost no children die:
| Country | Under-5 mortality rate (per 1,000) | Deaths per day |
|---|---|---|
| Finland | 2.0 | ~1 |
| Japan | 2.0 | ~6 |
| Iceland | 2.1 | Under 1 |
| Singapore | 2.3 | Under 1 |
| Norway | 2.4 | ~1 |
| Sweden | 2.5 | ~1 |
| South Korea | 2.7 | ~4 |
| United Kingdom | 3.8 | ~7 |
A child born in Nigeria is nearly 60 times more likely to die before age five than a child born in Finland. That is not a small gap — it is the difference between a world where childhood death is a normal part of life and one where it is a rare tragedy that makes the news.
You can explore mortality data for any of these countries on our country pages. The life expectancy figures are closely connected to child mortality — countries where many children die always have lower average life expectancy, even if the adults who survive childhood live to a normal age.
The trend: massive progress, then a slowdown
This is the part of the data that deserves more attention than it gets. The decline in child mortality over the past 50 years is one of the greatest achievements in human history.
| Year | Annual under-5 deaths | Rate per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 16,400,000 | 213 |
| 1980 | 14,400,000 | 170 |
| 1990 | 12,800,000 | 93 |
| 2000 | 9,700,000 | 76 |
| 2010 | 7,100,000 | 52 |
| 2015 | 5,900,000 | 43 |
| 2020 | 5,000,000 | 37 |
| 2025 | 4,900,000 | 35 |
In 1970, over 16 million children under five died every year. By 2025, that number has dropped to under 5 million — a 70% reduction. The rate per 1,000 live births dropped from 213 to 35. That means a child born today is six times more likely to survive to age five than a child born in 1970.
This happened because of:
- Vaccination programmes — measles alone used to kill 2.6 million children per year. Now it kills about 100,000.
- Oral rehydration therapy — introduced in the 1970s, it has saved an estimated 50 million lives.
- Insecticide-treated bed nets — malaria deaths in children have dropped by more than 50% since 2000.
- Improved nutrition — the proportion of stunted children has declined from 40% to 22%.
- Clean water access — the share of the world with access to safe water has risen from 76% to 90%.
But the progress has slowed. Between 2015 and 2025, the decline flattened. The remaining deaths are concentrated in the hardest-to-reach places — conflict zones, remote rural areas, urban slums — where healthcare systems are weakest and poverty is deepest.
The cost of saving a child's life
This section matters because people often assume that solving global health problems requires impossibly large amounts of money. It does not.
| Intervention | Cost per child saved |
|---|---|
| Oral rehydration therapy (ORS) | £0.05 per sachet |
| Insecticide-treated bed net | £1.50 |
| Full childhood vaccination course | £15-25 |
| Amoxicillin for pneumonia | £0.70 |
| Zinc supplements for diarrhoea | £0.50 |
| Vitamin A supplementation | £0.02 per dose |
The estimated cost of saving one child's life through targeted interventions in low-income countries ranges from £3,000 to £5,000. That covers the infrastructure, distribution, training, and medicine needed to prevent one death.
To put that in perspective, the UK spends roughly £4,000 per person per year on the NHS. The cost of saving one child in sub-Saharan Africa is approximately what the UK spends keeping one healthy adult alive for twelve months.
The neonatal crisis
The first 28 days of life deserve their own section because this is where progress has been slowest and the death toll is highest.
| Neonatal cause | Annual deaths | Share of neonatal deaths |
|---|---|---|
| Preterm birth complications | 800,000 | 35% |
| Birth asphyxia & trauma | 580,000 | 25% |
| Neonatal sepsis & infections | 500,000 | 22% |
| Congenital abnormalities | 280,000 | 12% |
| Other | 140,000 | 6% |
Most neonatal deaths happen because there is no skilled birth attendant present, no neonatal intensive care available, or no access to basic antibiotics for newborn infections. In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, fewer than 50% of births are attended by a skilled health worker.
A baby born prematurely in London has access to ventilators, surfactant therapy, and round-the-clock neonatal nursing. A baby born prematurely in rural Chad has access to nothing. The difference in survival rates between these two scenarios is enormous, and it is entirely a function of geography and resources.
What you can take away from this
The story of child mortality is ultimately one of incomplete progress. We have reduced child deaths by 70% in fifty years — an achievement that ranks alongside the eradication of smallpox and the invention of antibiotics. But 13,700 children still die every single day, and the vast majority of those deaths are preventable with interventions that already exist and cost almost nothing to deliver.
The data does not ask you to feel guilty. It asks you to be aware.
While you have been reading this article — roughly 12 minutes — about 114 children under five have died worldwide. Most of them from causes we know how to treat. See the full picture on our deaths today page, or check how your country compares on our life expectancy table.
Data sources: UNICEF, WHO, UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME), The Lancet. Figures are the most recent available estimates. This article is for informational purposes only.
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