In other words, on average, for every thousand children born in Angola, 52 do not survive to the age of five, according to data presented during the Global Forum for Innovation and Action for Immunisation and Child Survival – 2025 by Rosa Moreira.
She indicated that, in addition to reducing deaths of children under 5, which fell from 68 to 52 per thousand live births between 2015 and 2024, Angola also lowered the neonatal mortality rate from 24 to 16 per thousand live births.
In the same reference period, infant mortality fell from 44 to 32 per thousand live births, according to statistics presented by Rosa Moreira. “When we talk about the main causes of morbidity [illness] and mortality in children under 5, malaria is at the top of the list, followed by acute respiratory infections, acute diarrhoeal diseases and chronic malnutrition,” she said.
Angola also warned of the high mortality rate among adolescents, pointing to obstetric complications due to teenage pregnancy – which, according to the data presented, stands at 27% – sexually transmitted infections, road accidents and other types of trauma as the causes.
She added that Angola will move forward with incentives for health professionals in rural areas, including their rotation, and will train at least 40,000 professionals by 2029 to deal with children up to the age of 5.
“We want to implement a new vaccination strategy that will begin in 2025 and continue until 2029, and we are counting on the introduction of new hexavalent vaccines and the malaria vaccine,” said the chair of the Technical Advisory Committee on Vaccination in Angola.
The Mozambican president expressed concern on Tuesday about the slowdown in the reduction of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa.
We are concerned that Africa still has the highest number of deaths of children under the age of five worldwide.
Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, we remain concerned about the slowdown in the reduction of child mortality in recent years,” said Mozambican President Daniel Chapo at the opening of the Global Forum on Innovation and Action for Immunisation and Child Survival – 2025, which runs until Thursday in the country’s capital.
More than 300 delegates from 29 countries, including ministers and deputy ministers of health, scientists and academics, and civil society organisations are participating in the Forum in Maputo.
The meeting is organised by the ministries of health of Mozambique and Sierra Leone and the Government of Spain, with the collaboration of the ‘la Caixa’ and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations and Unicef.
According to the director general of the National Institute of Health of Mozambique (INS), the forum will discuss scientific solutions to enable the world to reposition itself in accelerating the fight against child mortality, including the demand for a new political commitment to this cause.
Samo Gudo also pointed to a “historic and unprecedented reduction” in child mortality in recent decades worldwide, highlighting that between 1990 and 2023, the number of deaths of children under the age of 5 fell from around 12.8 million per year to 4.8 million.
Despite these advances, global health organisations have recorded a slowdown in the rate of decline in mortality in this age group since 2015, highlighting the risk that at least 60 African countries will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to estimates by the World Health Organisation put forward by the same official.
Platform with Lusa
