Death is not inevitable.
Although you may think that your life began with your birth or conception, the gametes (sperm and egg) that created you were very much alive prior to meeting each other. The cells in your body have effectively been alive for billions of years, since the beginning of life itself. The only reason that we die is that it is more efficient (in terms of replication of our genes) to build a new body every so often rather than trying to maintain a single body indefinately.
The main reason our bodies degrade is because of the oxygen we breath. This corrodes our DNA in exactly the same way as it rusts iron or steel. Our distant ancestors chose the high risk, high benefit option of using oxygen as a fuel. This allows much larger amounts of energy to be obtained but also causes substantial amounts of damage.

One sixth of all people that die are under 5 years old.

"If the whole world were able to share the current child mortality experience of Iceland, over 10 million child deaths could be prevented each year." - Surviving the first five years of life, World Health Organisation

The average life expectancy in Mozambique is 32 years old. In Botswana, 1 out of every 50 people die of AIDS every year.

Causes of Mortality in 2002