The number of children dying before their fifth birthdays each year has fallen below 9 million for the first time on record, a significant milestone in the global effort to improve children's chances of survival, particularly in the developing world, according to data that UNICEF is to release Thursday. The child mortality rate has declined by more than a quarter in the last two decades -- to 65 per 1,000 live births last year, from 90 in 1990 -- in large part because of wider distribution of relatively inexpensive technologies, like measles vaccines and anti-malaria mosquito nets. Wealthy nations, international agencies and philanthropists like Bill and Melinda Gates have committed billions of dollars to the effort. Schoolchildren and church groups have also pitched in. Together, they have helped reduce the number of children under 5 who died last year to 8.8 million -- the lowest since records were first kept in 1960, UNICEF said. In 1990 the number was 12.5 million. Even so, there is a long way to go before achieving the goal set by leaders of 189 nations in 2000: to cut the child mortality rate by two thirds by 2015. Pneumonia and diarrhea, the two leading causes of child deaths, are still relatively neglected, especially compared to malaria and measles, experts say. One of the steepest drops in child mortality has occurred here in Malawi. For every 1,000 babies born here, 125 more children survived to their fifth birthdays in 2008 than did in 1990. Malawi has found creative ways to get the most cost-effective treatments and prevention methods even to remote rural areas, including mosquito nets, vaccinations, deworming medicines and vitamin supplements that boost immunity. Perhaps the nation's most powerful weapon has been its ranks of more than 10,000 high school-educated village health workers, who help make up for a severe shortage of doctors and nurses. With a minimum 10 weeks of training, medical checklists to aid in diagnosis, and sturdy bicycles to get around on, they dispense medicines and give injections. Teresa Frazier, 40, gave birth to nine children, seven of whom survived. As a young mother in a village that, at the time, was many miles from the nearest medical help, she lost a 5-year-old daughter who fell violently ill one night. 'These days, when a child falls sick in the night, the mother can knock on the door of the health assistant,' she said. 