KEY POINTS

Child mortality could increase due to funding cuts and global challenges.

COVID-19 did not halt child mortality progress; however, projections foresee more deaths.

Foreign aid cuts have led to decreased health funding, exacerbating child mortality rates.

What has been hailed as a “crowning achievement in global health,” as NPR put it , may soon unravel. In the first 24 years of this century, the number of children younger than age 5 who died was cut in half, due in large part to improvements in global health, including availability worldwide of childhood vaccines.

Even COVID-19 didn’t stop the progress in reducing the number of children who die before their 5th birthday. But it’s expected that the final 2025 reckoning will show that child deaths went up instead of down, a

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