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The quiet halving of Sudan's death rate

The quiet halving of Sudan's death rate

النصف الهادئ لمعدل الوفيات في السودان

In 1960 Sudan's crude death rate stood above 20 per 1,000. It is now near 7. Nothing dramatic did that. Vaccination campaigns, oral rehydration salts, antibiotics, cleaner water in towns, and mothers with a few more years of schooling did.

Child survival drove most of the fall. When under-five mortality drops, the whole death rate follows, because so many deaths used to happen in the first years of life.

The current conflict has damaged parts of this machinery, and health workers warn some gains are slipping. Death rates fall slowly and can rise quickly.

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