GENEVA, May 21 (Xinhua) -- The deaths of children under five years old have dropped by 27 percent globally since 1990, according to the latest estimates released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday.

    Some 9 million children under five years old died in 2007, significantly fewer than the 12.5 million estimated to have died in 1990, said the WHO's first progress report on the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

    This decline "illustrates what can be achieved by strengthening health systems and scaling up interventions, such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets for malaria and oral rehydrationtherapy for diarrhoea, increased access to vaccines and improved water and sanitation in developing countries," said Dr Ties Boerma, director of WHO's Department of Health Statistics and Informatics.

    The MDGs were initiated by the United Nations and its partners to achieve significant improvements in eight health and development areas by 2015. 1990 is the baseline year against which progress toward the goals is measured.

    "At the mid-way point, the analysis shows encouraging signs of progress," said Boerma.

    However, in many African countries and in low-income countries, progress has been insufficient to reach the MDG targets, which aim for a two thirds reduction in child mortality by the year 2015.

    "There needs to be more effort to strengthen health systems in countries affected by high levels of HIV/AIDS, economic hardship or conflict. Moreover, there is a need to pay greater attention to the poorest groups within countries where progress is often the slowest and child mortality rates remain high," Boerma said.

    "The challenges ahead are those presented by weak health systems, those associated with no communicable chronic conditions, and emerging health threats such as pandemics and climate change," he added.