The United Nations (UN) says the coronavirus pandemic threatens the lives of millions of children worldwide.
The body said a decade of progress in women and children’s health was at risk.
UNICEF sounded the alarm in a report released on Friday, Dpa reports.
The body listed achievements made since the launch of Every Woman Every Child movement in 2010.
The UN said more than one billion children have been vaccinated, and deaths of under-fives reached an all-time low in 2019.
In the same year, 5.2 million children died of preventable causes before age 5. 82 percent were in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The report warned that without more efforts to tackle preventable child deaths, 48 million children under five could die between 2020 and 2030.
UNICEF Executive Director, Henrietta Fore, in a statement, said even before COVID-19, a child under the age of five died every six seconds somewhere around the world.
“Millions of children living in conflict zones and fragile settings face even greater hardship with the onset of the pandemic”, Fore added.
