The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has announced a 'child survival crisis' in the former Soviet Union where infant mortality rates are alarmingly high in Tajikistan and in other parts of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Presenting the organization's annual Social Monitor report in Rome, UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy said more than 60,000 children die before their first birthday in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe.

This is three times as many as in the European Union, which had only slightly fewer births.

Bellamy said the UNICEF report throws a spotlight on the "true scale of infant mortality in this part of the world", where the official figures, based on outmoded Soviet-era practices and reporting, hide the scale of the crisis.

Overall, more than 10 million children a year die before their fifth birthday, the vast majority in infancy and from diseases that are easily treated in the west, said Bellamy.

According to the report: "Ten million-plus deaths are virtually beyond comprehension. And this annual loss of human potential is even more staggering when you consider that these children are brought down by causes that are largely preventable, such as measles, diarrhea and acute respiratory ailments."

"Our research shows that infant mortality is a far greater problem in these countries than suggested in the official data," said Bellamy.

"We have looked beyond the official statistics and talked to mothers in their own homes. And their stories reveal a child survival crisis.

"With around 60 deaths for every 1,000 live births, infant mortality rates in the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia are more than double those found in Latin America, and far higher than in East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

"Yet the magnitude of the tragedy affecting families in the region is not widely known."

UNICEF called on the former communist countries to adopt World Health Organization standards of registering and reporting births, to upgrade training of medical staff and better manage health care, and introduce incentives for parents to register births.AFP