New Delhi, June 4 -- A series of five research papers published in The British Medical Journal estimates that globally 4.9 million children died before turning five in 2024, including 2.3 million neonatal deaths.

Mortality was found to be highest in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, even as researchers cited uncertainty in values due to data sparsity and quality.

Researchers, including those from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Office of Strategy and Evidence-Innocenti, Italy, said that global progress in reducing preventable deaths among newborn babies, children and adolescents has slowed substantially since 2015.

While the mortality rate among children under five declined by 3.9 per cent during 2000-15, the rate of decli...