Though survival prospects have improved in every region, 10.5 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2004 – mostly from preventable causes. The vast majority of these children (94 per cent) lived in 60 countries. Sub-Saharan Africa, with only 20 per cent of the world’s young children, accounted for half of the total deaths, a situation that has shown only modest improvement. In contrast, child survival has improved markedly in Latin America and the Caribbean, South-Eastern and Eastern Asia and Northern Africa, where child mortality rates have declined by more than 3 per cent annually.