London ? The lives of 6 million children under 5 could be saved every year if flu shots and other low-cost measures to prevent or treat disease were more widely used, global health experts say.

Every year, nearly 11 million children worldwide die before their fifth birthday, most from preventable causes such as diarrhea, pneumonia, neonatal problems and malaria. Malnutrition is a major factor in more than half those deaths, researchers estimate.

In a series of articles this week in The Lancet medical journal, experts say inexpensive lifesaving measures such as breast-feeding, insecticide-treated bed nets, flu shots, antibiotics, newborn resuscitation and clean childbirth are not reaching the mothers and children who need them most.

Scaling up those interventions to a level that would save 6 million lives a year would cost about $7.5 billion annually.

In the 1980s, the world made great progress in reducing child deaths through a UNICEF campaign called the child survival revolution. But momentum was lost in the 1990s.

Experts stressed two main reasons why progress appears to have stalled.

One is the realization in the 1990s that HIV/AIDS was decimating populations in Africa, which shifted the world’s attention and resources toward fighting specific diseases.

The other major factor was complacency, experts say.