Online CPR Certification Blog
Child Mortality
Date: June 2nd, 2013
Child Death Will Soon Be a Forgotten Past
The U. N. agencies have indicated that child deaths that are experienced by the poor families in Africa and South Asia due to pneumonia and severe diarrhea can be brought to a stop by the year 2025. This will be realized if the ten years plan that has been set materializes. The plan is set to cost about six billion US dollars. This is expected to end the deaths of 2 million children below the age of five years, a phenomenon that is experienced every year due to the killer diseases, pneumonia, and diarrhea. According to Elizabeth Mason, a director at the World Health Organization, these targets will be achieved in the next ten years. Deaths from these two diseases are preventable and hence it is a feasible plan.
The changeable causes of these deaths are the poor provision of health services that are not enough in the affected regions. The very vulnerable areas never receive the services and hence they are left to depend on options that cannot cater to the needs. The aim of this endeavor is to lower the deaths of these children to less than 4 per every 1,000 live births by the time we get to 2025. The current rate of the deaths against the same number of live births is 20. After the plan is implemented and the results achieved, their final aim will be to eradicate the deaths related to those diseases completely.
The Plan Can Be Termed As Ambitious
With the aim of the U.N. to triple the access of medication by all the children under the age of five years is ambitious. This will mean that 90% of those children will be able to get pneumonia antibiotics and oral rehydration salts that are used to control diarrhea. To achieve this integrated approach has to be used. For starters, normal and natural ways will be used to control infections. Such ways are for instance breastfeeding, feeding the children on a balanced diet, use of clean drinking water and better sanitation. In-house air pollution should be checked and solved by eliminating the use of charcoal and replacing it better cooking methods.
The use of new vaccines will also be considered so that pneumococcal bacteria that cause like 20% of pneumonia cases can be put in check. Rotavirus which is also the main cause of diarrhea will also be dealt with conclusively through the use of those new vaccines. The major manufacturers who are known to make these effective vaccines are GlaxoSmithKline and Merck. Their products for pneumonia are Rotarix and Rotateq and for diarrhea the produce Synflorix and Prevnar.
Mason expects the funding to be slightly over six billion US dollars. If this amount is spread over the 10 years it means an expenditure of 6 million US dollars which is divided among the countries the amount will make a huge impact.