Good news from UNICEF, the United Nations children’s fund. Child mortality rates are continuing to fall: since 1990 there has been a 28% drop in the under-five mortality rate.

The latest figures show that there has been some progress to making Millenium Development Goal 4: to reduce child mortality. The target, set in 2000, was to cut child mortality by two thirds the under-five mortality rate of 1990 by 2015.

The goal is still a long way from being reached, despite the success of a measles vaccination drive.

The rate of improvement has increased, though. The average rate of decline from 2000 to 2008 is 2.3 per cent, compared to a 1.4 per cent average decline from 1990 to 2000, the press release says.

Successes have been seen in particular in Niger, Mozambique and Ethiopia where under-five mortality has been reduced by more than 100 per 1000 live births since 1990.

But still 93% of all under-five deaths in the developing world happen in Africa and Asia. “A handful of countries with large populations bear a disproportionate burden of under-five deaths, with forty per cent of the world’s under-five deaths occurring in just three countries: India, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said UNICEF executive director Ann Veneman. “Unless mortality in these countries can be significantly reduced, the MDG targets will not be met.”