PHA-Exchange> URGENT IMPROVEMENTS IN HEALTH CARE NEEDED TO COMBAT CHILD DEATHS

[Claudio]

From: "Vern Weitzel" <vern at coombs.anu.edu.au>

From: UNNews at un.org

URGENT IMPROVEMENTS IN HEALTH CARE NEEDED TO COMBAT CHILD DEATHS, SAYS 
UNICEF
New York, Sep 18 2006  8:00PM
Releasing a new study today showing that around 29,000 children under five 
years old die around the
world every day, the United Nations Children’s Fund
(<"http://www.unicef.org/media/media_35928.html">UNICEF) called for stronger 
health services in
countries with high child mortality and increased Government and donor 
support for child survival.

The call was backed by a meeting of political and health experts in New 
York, organized jointly by the Norwegian Government, the Lancet medical 
journal and UNICEF, focusing on ways to prevent the deaths of millions of 
children before their fifth birthday, and the head of the Fund said lessons 
should be learnt from countries’ success stories.

Dramatic gains in child survival within some countries point the way toward 
successful strategies that can work on a broader scale. Such strategies 
include integrated, community-based approaches that address maternal and 
child health, nutrition, AIDS prevention and water and sanitation.

However panellists at today’s meeting also highlighted the fact that few of 
the countries with high child mortality levels are on track to reduce 
under-five mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015 – the fourth of the 
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a list of targets aimed at reducing 
poverty and other social ills.

Around 29,000 children under the age of five die each day and most of these 
deaths are preventable.
Pneumonia alone kills more children under five than any other disease 
according to a UNICEF/World
Health Organization (WHO) report launched today – two million children under 
five each year – more
than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.

UNICEF and its partners have carried out a focused assessment of key 
maternal, neonatal and child
survival indicators across the 60 countries with high child mortality, and 
this was also published today in a special issue of the Lancet. These 
countries account for 94 per cent of all under-five deaths worldwide.

The majority have made little or no progress on child mortality, while 14 
countries saw child mortality rates increase between 1990 and 2004. But the 
assessment also finds success stories, with seven countries set to reach the 
2015 goal, including Bangladesh and the Philippines, and it is from these 
that lessons should be drawn.

Global health partnerships such as the Measles Initiative have already 
helped to halve measles-related deaths in the past five years, UNICEF noted 
in a press release, while the Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS 
campaign is mobilizing resources for women and children living with
HIV/AIDS.