Goal: Reduce child mortality
Targets by 2015:
To reduce child mortality by two-thirds, from 93 children of
every 1,000 dying before age five in 1990 to 31 of every 1,000 in 2015.
Child survival lies at the heart of everything UNICEF does.
About 29,000 children under the age of five –
21 each minute – die every day, mainly from preventable causes.More than
70 per cent of almost 11 million child deaths every year are attributable to
six causes: diarrhoea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm
delivery, or lack of oxygen at birth. These deaths occur mainly in the
developing world. An Ethiopian child is
30 times more likely to die by his or her fifth birthday than a child in
Western Europe. Among deaths in children, South-central Asia has the highest
number of neonatal deaths, while sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates.
Two-thirds of deaths occur in just 10 countries.
And the majority are
preventable. Some of the deaths occur
from illnesses like measles, malaria or tetanus. Others result indirectly from
marginalization, conflict and HIV/AIDS.
Malnutrition and the lack of safe water and sanitation contribute to
half of all these children’s deaths. But disease isn’t inevitable, nor do
children with these diseases need to die. Research and experience show that six
million of the almost 11 million children who die each year could be saved by
low-tech, evidence-based, cost-effective measures such as vaccines,
antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation, insecticide-treated bed nets and
improved family care and breastfeeding practices.
These measures are the basis for UNICEF’s actions to help
children survive, carried through with hundreds of allies and via offices in
the field – and well-travelled staff – all over the world.
UNICEF responds by:
Providing high-impact health and nutrition interventions.
In partnership with governments, WHO and others, UNICEF aims
to scale up proven, high-impact, cost-effective health and nutrition
interventions to reduce the number of neonatal and young child deaths from
preventable and easily treatable causes.UNICEF is the world’s largest purchaser
of vaccines, procuring more than 40 per cent of all vaccines used in the
developing world. While global immunization rates have risen from less than 20
per cent in the 1970s to about 74 per cent in 2002, millions of children must
still be reached. UNICEF negotiates favourable prices and forecasts vaccines
requirements to ensure sustainable supplies. Targets include increasing
immunization coverage to at least 90 per cent at the national level and 80 per
cent in all districts, with particular focus on reaching population groups with
low coverage levels, and the final eradication of polio. When delivering
vaccines UNICEF adds micronutrient supplements to offset malnutrition, another
critical factor in child survival. Supplements of vitamin A taken every four to
six months can reduce child mortality from all causes by as much as 23 per
cent, measles deaths by 50 per cent and deaths from diarrhoea by 33 per cent.
Another target in this area is increasing the rate of children sleeping under
mosquito nets to at least 60 per cent in malaria-endemic areas. Malaria is
responsible for 10 per cent of all under-five deaths in developing countries.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), poor
neonatal conditions are the most prominent cause of young deaths. Four million
babies per year die in the first week of life. In response, UNICEF advocates
for and promotes programs to increase rates of exclusive breastfeeding. The
strongest foundation of baby health is nutrition, and the best food for
newborns is breast milk. Breastfeeding protects babies from diarrhoea and acute
respiratory infections, stimulates their immune systems and improves response
to vaccinations, and contains many hundreds of health-enhancing molecules,
enzymes, proteins and hormones.
A mother’s health is also critical to newborns, particularly
in light of new research that suggests a sound neonatal environment is an
important predictor of future health. Together with the WHO and United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA), UNICEF advocates and lends technical and financial
support to comprehensive community health programs for expectant women. This
would ideally include providing micronutrient supplements, vaccines,
anti-malarial drugs and insecticide-treated bed nets.
Improving family
care practices.
About 80 per cent of health care in developing countries
occurs in the home – and the majority of children who die do so at home,
without being seen by a health worker. Meanwhile, proper infant feeding and
breast feeding are still not practiced by many families. As many as 40 per cent
of child deaths could be prevented with improved family and community care –
not high-tech health equipment, but access to solid knowledge, support and
basic supplies. Working with governments, health providers and communities in
the field, UNICEF helps families learn essential skills and basic health
knowledge, particularly in the care of newborns. This includes best practices
in breastfeeding and complementary feeding, hygiene and safe faeces disposal.
UNICEF also works for better integration among systems that deliver basic
supplies and health services to the poorest families. Health and outreach
workers are enabled to support better parenting, the care of mothers, infant
feeding, care-seeking practices among families and communities in favour of
disease prevention, and optimal management of childhood illness. These include
treatment for diarrhoea, including the use of oral re-hydration salts, and for
acute respiratory infections such as pneumonia.
Increasing access to improved water and sanitation.
UNICEF helps develop systems to control water-borne diseases
like Guinea worm and cholera that undermine child survival and development,
reduce productivity and raise health-care costs. Struggles to find water and
hygiene resources also primarily increase burdens on girls and women. Working
closely with governments, UNICEF also helps strengthen policies and budgets and
support technical capacities in programmes for hygiene promotion, sanitation,
cost-effective water supply options and water quality, particularly for poor
rural and urban families. These activities also aim toward fulfilling
Millennium Goals 4 and 7. UNICEF also helps develop partnerships that pool
competencies and resources, particularly in its role as advocate, facilitator
and coordinator in emergencies.
Responding rapidly to emergencies.
UNICEF is also one of the first aid organizations on the
scene following the outbreak of a crisis, helping to establish monitoring
systems, organize partnerships and provide vaccinations and vitamin A
supplementation. UNICEF also helps fund and build fresh water and sanitation
facilities, helping stem the spread of water-borne diseases. By providing
supplies, personnel and assistance with facilities and sanitation, UNICEF also
helps get children Back to School, which supports a number of Goals. As well as
being registered and accounted for, and supervised by adults, children can also
access health care, food and sanitation resources at a school.
Progress
In its sixty years of existence, UNICEF has seen a fifty per
cent reduction in under-five mortality between 1960 and 2002. We’ve seen that
vitamin A supplementation can save over a quarter million lives a year; oral
rehydration therapy can prevent 1 million deaths, and immunization programmes
can protect the lives of nearly 4 million children. But progress in meeting
this Millennium Goal is the most off track of any. In 2002, 7 of every 1,000
children in industrialized countries died before they were five. In South Asia,
97 of 1,000 children died before they were five. And in sub-Saharan Africa,
that number is 174 of every 1,000 children. Ninety countries, 53 of them from
developing nations, should be able to meet the 2015 Goal of reducing child
mortality by two-thirds, if they maintain their current annual reduction
rate. But 91 developing countries lag
far behind. Many have seen mortality rates rise since 1990, countries from
sub-Saharan Africa as well as Iraq and former members of the Soviet Union. The
number of children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS is projected to
reach 25 million by the end of the decade, 18 million of them in sub-Saharan
Africa. This, along with only modest progress fighting malaria, means the
threats facing child survival are as grave as ever.
***Copied from :http://www.unicef.org/mdg/childmortality.html
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