Quique Bassat
Director General and ICREA Research Professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)
The recently released UNICEF report highlights that every year 5 million children worldwide die before they reach the age of five, and 1.9 million more are stillborn.
Despite remarkable progress compared to the beginning of the century, these figures remain unacceptable and demonstrate the enormous health inequities that still prevail in this highly unequal world: more than 9 out of 10 of these deaths occur in the lowest income countries and from mostly preventable causes.
The international scientific community has an obligation to continue research into what are the main causes of these deaths and how best to prevent them, so that, in the future, your place of birth will not be such a dramatic determinant of your chances of survival.