Taipei, April 3 (CNA) Taiwan’s injury-related child mortality rate fell to four per 100,000 in 2020 from five per 100,000 in 2016 after four consecutive years of decline, according to a report by the General Directorate of Budget , statistical accounting (DGBAS).
There were 95 such deaths recorded in 2020, down from 123 in 2016, with the child population at 2.35 million in 2020 and 2.45 million in 2016, the DGBAS said on Friday.
Taiwan is experiencing a steady decline in the number of children (people under the age of 12), which fell to 2.28 million, or 9.8% of the total population, at the end of February this year.
The 2020 figures also showed that the mortality rate for boys remained higher than for girls, which were 4.6 per 100,000 children and 3.4 per 100,000 children respectively.
Meanwhile, the leading cause of child death from injury in 2020 was “breath-related”, which refers to choking, suffocation and other similar incidents, the DGBAS said.
Incidents “related to breathing” accounted for 34.7% in 2020 and 30.1% in 2016 of all child injury deaths, according to the report.
The second and third most common causes in 2020 were “transport accidents” and “drownings”, which accounted for 28.4% and 15.8% of injury-related child deaths, respectively, according to the report.
The order of fatal causes of injury-related child deaths has remained largely unchanged over the years, in addition to an increase in “other reasons” in 2016, when many children died from a violent earthquake. land in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, DGBAS pointed out.