Paris (AFP)

More than 15,000 children under five die every day in the world, with huge disparities between countries, or even between regions, according to a large study released Wednesday.

From 2000 to 2017, 123 million children aged 0-5 years died in the 99 low- and middle-income countries covered by the study. This represents more than 90% of deaths worldwide for this age group.

If we add the preliminary figures for 2018 as well as the estimates for countries that are not included in the study (such as China, Mexico, Brazil or Malaysia), we obtain the total of more than 130 million dollars. children under 5 died in the world during this period, according to the authors of these works published in the journal Nature.

The main causes of these deaths vary with age.

When the child is less than one year old, it is most often the result of premature birth.

From two to four years of age, these children are more likely to succumb to malaria, diarrheal diseases or respiratory infections such as pneumonia.

The risk of dying for children under 5 is ten times higher in some countries than others, or even forty times when comparing regions with each other.

For example, in 2017, only four out of every 1,000 children would die before age five in the Santa Clara region of Cuba. But this rate stood at 195 out of 1,000 in the Garki region of Nigeria.

Overall, the mortality of children under 5 fell by half between 2000 and 2017, from 10 to 5.4 million.

This work provides accurate and very precise mapping of infant mortality in the 99 countries studied.

"Our work can serve as a basis for health authorities to improve health systems in a targeted way," said one of the authors, Simon Hay, of the Institute of Metrology and Health Evaluation (IHME, University of Washington), a statistical agency funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

"Access to medical treatment is just one of the elements," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in a commentary also published by Nature.

"The factors that contribute to deaths are related to broader evils: poverty, discrimination and injustice," she said.

© 2019 AFP