Protecting Children and Their Mothers: The Millennium Development Goals Push Lofty Heath Targets

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report 2005 (“UN report”) shows that child mortality is strongly related to poverty level, as poor countries have less access to advances in child survival treatments than wealthier countries. Five diseases are responsible for fifty percent of all deaths of children under five – pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles, and AIDS. The data suggests that nutrition is the most important preventative measure, because malnutrition weakens the immune system. According to the UN report, safe water, better sanitation, education, and higher income levels can also increase a child’s life expectancy. Other measures to reduce child mortality rates include breastfeeding, immunization, antibiotics for acute respiratory infections, oral rehydration for diarrhea, and use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and drugs for malaria