♦ According to new United Nations estimates, about 4.9 million children died before reaching their fifth birthday in 2024, a sign progress to reduce child mortality rates was stalling even before global aid budget cuts last year (2025). Most of the deaths were preventable with better access to healthcare and low-cost interventions for challenges like complications from pre-term birth or diseases like malaria, said UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the U.N. population division, which produced the report.

♦ Preventable child deaths have more than halved since 2000, the agencies said, but progress has slowed since 2015.

♦ In 2022, the figure was also 4.9 million, then a record-low; in 2023, it was 4.8 million. While the 2024 number appears to show a rise, the agencies said the data was calculated differently in the two different years, and could not be directly compared.

♦ The figures released on 18 MArch 2026 cover 2024, before the United States, followed by other big donors like the United Kingdom and Germany, began cutting their international aid budgets.

♦ Overall, global development assistance for health fell by just under 27% in 2025 compared to 2024, according to a report by the Gates Foundation at the end of 2025.