UN: About 4.9 Million Children Under 5 Died in 2024

Roughly 4.9 million children died before reaching their fifth birthday in 2024, according to new United Nations estimates, a sign that progress to reduce child mortality was stalling even before global aid budget cuts last year.

Most of the deaths were preventable with better access to healthcare and low-cost interventions for challenges such as complications from preterm birth or diseases including malaria, said UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the U.N. population division, which produced the report.

Preventable child deaths have fallen more than half 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 thus could not be directly compared.

Reducing child mortality rates slow down worldwide

"However ... we do see a global slowdown in mortality reduction," a WHO spokesperson added, warning that conflict, economic instability, climate change, and weak health systems were all contributing to stalling progress. Aid cuts would add to the challenge, she said.

"Together, these pressures risk undermining past achievements and could lead to stagnation – or even reversal – in hard-won child survival gains if not addressed," she said.

The figures released on Tuesday cover 2024, before the United States, followed by other big donors including the United Kingdom and Germany, began cutting their international aid budgets.

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

The foundation warned then that progress on child mortality was going into reverse as a result of the cuts, based on its estimates.

"No child should die from diseases that we know how to prevent. But we see worrying signs that progress in child survival is slowing – and at a time where we’re seeing further global budget cuts," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. The agencies said the cuts could also make it harder to track progress due to weakened data collection.

The report is based on U.N. data as well as estimates from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.