Child mortality

With each mother who learns to cook a new, nutritious meal, and each spoonful of semolina porridge lovingly fed to a child, the cycle of poverty and poor health begins to break.

Combined, malaria and malnutrition constitute a “double health burden” that traps the most vulnerable – especially children under five years of age – in a deadly cycle.

In 2023 alone, roughly 260,000 women worldwide died during or shortly after childbirth, with 22 per cent (about 58,000 maternal deaths) occurring in the Asia-Pacific – many of which were preventable with timely midwife-led care.

Notably, five of the infected are children, and data show that those aged 15 and above face a higher mortality risk—especially if unvaccinated.

UNICEF also called for more humanitarian aid and commercial traffic to come in to stabilise the situation and reduce the desperation of the population.

The results highlight not only the effectiveness of emergency vaccination, but also the critical role of preparedness and speed in response to emerging threats.

The past year saw 14.3 million “zero-dose” children who never received a single dose of any vaccine, WHO and UNICEF said in a joint press release on Tuesday.

In Upper Kohistan, 98 out of 718 babies – roughly 13.65 per cent – were born underweight, making it the most affected district in the province. Kolai Palas followed with a 9.04 per cent rate (34 out of 376), while Upper Chitral recorded 76 such cases out of 1,212 births, translating to 6.27 per cent.