9,000 preventable deaths in infants

Thousands of newborn babies die every day from preventable diseases

31.08.2011

Thousands of infants die daily because of a lack of proper medical care. As „World Online“ citing figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations, around 9,000 newborns less than four weeks of age are succumbing to a truly preventable disease every day. Nearly all infant deaths (99 percent) occur in developing and emerging countries, according to the WHO.

For infants in the poorer countries with poorer medical care, especially the time immediately after birth is particularly critical. According to the WHO, around 40 percent of all deaths of children under the age of five occur in the first 28 days after birth. As countries with particularly high child mortality calls „World Online“ primarily African countries such as the Congo and Nigeria, but also countries such as China, Pakistan and India.

Millennium Development Goal to Reduce Child Mortality
Reducing child mortality is one of the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the international community in 2000. According to the United Nations decision at the Millennium Summit, the child mortality rate for under-five-year-old adolescents „between 1990 and 2015 by two-thirds (from 10.6 per cent to 3.5 per cent)“ be lowered. Although significant progress has been made and the number of neonatal deaths in the first four weeks of life has declined by approximately 1.3 million between 1990 and 2009 (from 4.6 million to 3.3 million), many are still dying today Too many children worldwide in preventable or treatable diseases, according to WHO.

Particularly high infant mortality in India, Nigeria, Pakistan and China
In terms of total deaths, India is the unfortunate front runner. According to figures from the WHO, about 900,000 newborns die each year, which accounts for 28 percent of the world-wide deaths of infants aged up to four weeks. Nigeria and Pakistan follow in second and third place, while China is in fourth place. However, China has made significant progress over the past few years, and the People's Republic is still relatively far ahead in terms of total infant mortality due to the huge population. By contrast, China's share of deaths in total live births can almost halve child mortality. In 1990, there were still 23 deaths per 1000 live births, in 2009 there were only eleven deaths per 1,000 live births, reports the WHO. With massive investment in health care, China has significantly reduced infant mortality. However, the Millennium Development Goal to reduce child mortality by two-thirds has not yet been achieved.

Ten countries have reduced child mortality by two-thirds
According to the WHO, the situation is different, for example, in Estonia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic and Cyprus, where child mortality has been reduced by more than two-thirds since 1990 in some cases. A total of ten countries have already reached the Millennium Development Goal to reduce child mortality, WHO reports. However, little progress has been made in most African countries over the past few years. On average, African countries report a fall in child mortality of only one percent per year, which would mean that the mortality rate of newborns will not reach the level of modern industrialized countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom or the United States for another 150 years. Achieving the Millennium Development Goal seems therefore already excluded today. Only by substantial investments in the health care of the states on the African continent could a significant improvement be achieved. But since many of the African countries with particularly high child mortality are still plagued by hunger and war, it seems hardly conceivable to adequately expand the health care system to supply the population and newborns. (Fp)

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Picture: UK