10/01/2023 01:01 (act. 10/01/2023 01:01)
Children in sub-Saharan Africa have the highest death rate in the world ©APA/AFP
According to UNICEF estimates, around five million children will have died before their fifth birthday in 2021. Another 2.1 million children, adolescents and young adults also lost their lives between the ages of five and 24, the Interagency Group reported. for Estimating Child Mortality (UN IGME) in a broadcast on Tuesday. According to another UN report, another 1.9 million babies were stillborn during the same period.
As a result, every 4.4 seconds in 2021, a child or teenager would die. According to the experts’ report, many of the deaths could have been prevented through fair access and high-quality health care for mothers, newborns, children and young people. “Every day, many parents face the fear of losing their child, sometimes before they even take their first breath,” said Vidhya Ganesh, director of data analysis, planning and monitoring at UNICEF. These tragedies must never be accepted as inevitable. “Progress is possible with stronger political will and targeted investment in equitable access to primary health care for all women and children.”
However, the most recent studies also show positive developments. Since the year 2000, the risk of death has decreased in all age groups worldwide. In addition, the overall under-five mortality rate has halved since the beginning of the century, while the older child and adolescent mortality rate has dropped by 36% and the stillbirth rate by 35%. According to the UN report, this is due to increased investment in strengthening health systems for women, children and youth.
The organization warned that progress has slowed significantly since 2010. 54 countries would fall short of the Sustainable Development Goals in combating child mortality. The organizations warn that, by 2030, nearly 59 million children and young people will die and nearly 16 million babies will die of stillbirths unless swift action is taken to improve health care.
“It is deeply unfair that a child’s chances of survival can only be determined by where they are born, and that there are such huge inequalities in access to life-saving health services,” said Anshu Banerjee, Director of Maternal, Newborn and Child Care. and adolescent health and aging World Health Organization (WHO). The survival of girls and boys in childhood still depends a lot on where they were born. Reports clearly show that children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have the hardest basic conditions. While these sub-Saharan African countries accounted for only 29% of live births in the world, the report found that the region was responsible for 56% of all under-five deaths in 2021. According to UNICEF, children born in these African countries run the highest risk of dying in childhood in the world. Their risk is about 15 times greater than that of children in Europe and North America.
Mothers south of the Sahara and in South Asia were also the most likely to lose their babies to stillbirths: 77% of all stillbirths in 2021 occurred in these two regions, with half of all stillbirths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa alone, the report said. report . A woman’s risk of stillbirth is seven times greater in sub-Saharan Africa than in Europe and North America.
According to the study, the most common deaths in children occur in the first five years, half of them in the first month of life. For these babies, the leading causes of death were premature birth and complications during childbirth. More than 40% of stillbirths occurred during labor. Many of these tragedies could have been avoided if mothers-to-be had access to proper medical care during pregnancy and childbirth. For babies who survive the first 28 days, infectious diseases – such as pneumonia, diarrhea or malaria – pose the greatest danger.
According to the UN report, the corona pandemic has not directly increased child mortality. However, the organization is concerned that vaccination campaigns and nutrition services have been disrupted during this period and that access to basic medical care has been hampered or impaired. This could jeopardize the “health and well-being of children for years to come,” the statement said. The pandemic has led to the biggest drop in immunization coverage in three decades, putting the most vulnerable newborns and children at greater risk of dying from preventable illnesses.
UN IGME was founded in 2004, among other things, to disseminate data on child mortality. The group is led by the UNICEF children’s fund and includes the World Health Organization, the World Bank Group and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division.