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The UK’s childhood mortality rate remains higher than that in other Western Europe countries, the Lancet reports.

Globally, in 2013, Guinea-Bissau in West Africa had the world’s highest death rate among children less than five years of age (152.5 per 1,000 births). During the same year, 3,800 children less than five years of age died in the UK. The UK mortality rate for children aged 0-4 years was 4.9 per 1,000 births, which is more than double the rate in Iceland (2.4 per 1,000 births). Singapore had the lowest rate at 2.3 per 1,000 births.

The UK had poorer mortality rates than almost every other western European nation for neonatal deaths (0 and six days after birth; 2.1 per 1,000) and post-neonatal deaths (29 to 364 days; 1.4 per 1,000). The UK also had the worst record in Europe for childhood deaths between one and four years of age (0.8 per 1,000). By way of comparison, the figures in Iceland were 0.9, 0.7 and 0.4 per 1,000 births respectively.