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Nigeria is third on the list of five countries that accounted for half of all new-born deaths last year, a report by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has revealed.
The countries are India with 24 per cent, Pakistan with 10 per cent, Nigeria with 9 per cent, Democratic Republic of Congo with 4 per cent and Ethiopia with 3 per cent.
The report said most new-born deaths occurred in two regions-Southern Asia with 39 per cent and sub-Saharan Africa with 38 per cent.
It said 15,000 children died globally before their fifth birthday in 2016, with 46 per cent of the deaths occurring in the first 28 days of life.
According to the report released by UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Population Division of UNDESA, which make up the Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME), at current trends, 60 million children will die before their fifth birthday between 2017 and 2030, half of them new-borns.
Daily Trust