China records continued improvement in child health in 2024

BEIJING -- China's child health indicators continued to improve in 2024, alongside steady progress in preschool education, according to a statistical monitoring report released Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

In 2024, the neonatal mortality rate fell to 2.5 per thousand, the infant mortality rate to 4.0 per thousand, and the under-five mortality rate to 5.6 per thousand, representing declines of 0.3, 0.5 and 0.6 per thousand points, respectively, from 2023, according to the report on the implementation progress of the China National Program for Child Development (2021-2030).

By the end of 2024, China had 3,073 maternal and child health institutions and 162 children's hospitals, the report stated.

The pass rate for food safety sampling inspections of infant formula milk powder reached 99.88 percent in 2024, according to the report.

The gross enrollment rate for preschool education was 92.0 percent in 2024, up 0.9 percentage points from 2023, the report noted.

In 2024, over 5.485 million items of illegal and harmful online information endangering children were removed, according to the report.