Barbados and other Eastern Caribbean countries have made progress in improving their child survival rates while also cutting their maternal mortality figures, the 2009 State of the World's Children report released yesterday has revealed.

However, the UNICEF flagship report, which focuses on maternal and newborn health, says that a child born in a developing country is almost 14 times more likely to die in the first month of life than a child born in a developed one, and the risks faced by infants in the first 28 days of life is still at unacceptably high levels in some countries across the globe.

The report shows that, between 1990 and 2007, St Kitts and Nevis halved its under five mortality rate from 36 to 18 per 1,000 live births and its infant mortality (under one year old) from 30 to 16, while Grenada slashed its under five mortality rate from 37 to 19 and its infant mortality rate from 30 to 15 over the same period.