The remarkable progress made over the past decade in reducing the burden of child mortality is commendable. From an estimated annual child mortality rate of 10 million in 2000, now corrected to 9.6 million deaths, Li Liu and colleagues' study in The Lancet suggests that there are 2.0-2.4 million fewer deaths ever year, with major reductions in the number of deaths from diarrhoea, pneumonia, and measles. Differences in methodological approaches aside, the overall figures for child mortality are similar to those published last year by Lozano and colleagues.
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