In 2013, 6.3 million children under five died from mostly preventable causes by World Health Organization, Unicef 6:45pm 18th Sep, 2014   In 2013, 6.3 million children under five died from mostly preventable causes.    New data released by the United Nations shows that under-five mortality rates have dropped by 49 per cent between 1990 and 2013, but overall progress is still short of meeting the global target of a two-thirds decrease in under-five mortality by 2015.    New estimates in Levels and Trends in Child Mortality 2014 show that in 2013, 6.3 million children under five died from mostly preventable causes, around 200,000 fewer than in 2012, but still equal to nearly 17,000 child deaths each day.    “There has been accelerating progress in reducing mortality among children, and the data prove that success is possible even for poorly resourced countries,” said Mickey Chopra, head UNICEF’s of global health programmes. “There is now a gathering momentum from countries in every part of the world to make sure proven, cost-effective interventions are applied where they will save the most lives.”    In 2013, 2.8 million babies died within the first month of life, which represents about 44 per cent of all under-five deaths. About two-thirds of these deaths occurred in just 10 countries. While the number of neo-natal deaths have declined, progress has been slower than for the overall under-five mortality rate.    In June this year, WHO, UNICEF and partners issued the first-ever global plan to end preventable newborn deaths and stillbirths by 2035. The Every Newborn Action Plan calls for all countries to take steps to provide basic, cost-effective health services – in particular around the time of childbirth, as well as for small and sick babies – and to improve the quality of care.    “The global community can end preventable maternal, newborn and child deaths within a generation,” said Dr Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director General at WHO. “We know what to do and we know how to do it. The challenge now is to move from plan to action.”    Among the report’s other major findings:    Eight of the 60 countries identified as ‘high mortality countries’ – with at least 40 under-five deaths for every 1,000 live births – have already reached the MDG target (67 per cent reduction). The countries are Malawi (72), Bangladesh (71), Liberia (71), Tanzania (69), Ethiopia (69), Timor-Leste (68), Niger (68) and Eritrea (67).    Eastern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and Northern Africa, have reduced the under-five mortality rate by more than two-thirds since 1990.    Two countries, India (21 per cent) and Nigeria (13 per cent), together account for more than one-third of deaths among children below 5 years of age.    While Sub-Saharan Africa has cut under-five mortality rates by 48 per cent since 1990, it still has the world’s highest rate – 92 deaths per 1,000 live births – nearly 15 times the average in high-income countries.    Children born in Angola, which has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world (167 deaths per 1,000 live births), are 84 times more likely to die before the age of five than children born in Luxembourg, with the lowest rate (2). Within countries, relative wealth, education, and location are key – a child’s risk of dying increases if she or he is born in a remote rural area, into a poor household or to a mother with no education.    The leading causes of under-five deaths are pre-term birth complications (17 per cent); pneumonia (15 per cent); complications during labour and delivery (11 per cent); diarrhoea (9 per cent); and malaria (7 per cent). Under-nutrition contributes to nearly half of all under-five deaths.    “For continued progress, it is essential to invest more in health systems that deliver high-quality, affordable services to all women and children who need them,” said Olusoji Adeyi, Director of Health, Nutrition and Population at the World Bank Group.    The report notes that major improvements in child survival are in part due to affordable, evidence-based interventions against the leading infectious diseases, such as immunization, insecticide-treated mosquito nets, rehydration treatment for diarrhoea, nutritional supplements and therapeutic foods.    The major causes of neonatal mortality – pre-term birth complications (35 per cent) or problems during delivery or birth (24 per cent) – require health interventions closely linked with protecting maternal health.    (The Levels and Trends in Child Mortality 2014 report is developed annually by the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, which is led by UNICEF and includes the World Health Organization, the World Bank Group and the United Nations Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs).    http://www.unicef.org/media/media_75892.html    State officials answerable to the public on preventable child mortality – UN human rights chief.    UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said Thursday that the State has a moral and legal responsibility to take measures to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, preventable mortality and morbidity of children under the age of five.    “Each year, 6 million children lose their lives before their fifth birthday – equivalent to the entire population of Nicaragua, Norway or New Zealand, every year,” Zeid said.    “A harsh reality makes a calamity of this tragedy – the reality that, in our hands, we have the ways and means to prevent at least 50 percent of these deaths and more. That we fail to take the steps necessary to protect our children from the devastating consequences of these conditions constitutes grave violations of the child’s rights to life, survival, development, and the highest attainable standard of health.”    Zeid stressed that when the State is not doing what it can to prevent such deaths, it is defaulting on its legal and moral obligations to its own people.    “State officials are answerable to the public when children die of preventable causes. If local officials, relevant ministers, heads of government or heads of State are not doing what they should to uphold the rights of these – the smallest, most vulnerable of their people – then such omissions may well amount to criminal negligence,” he said.    “For human rights not only connect us all. In this instance, they implicate us all. If a country is committed to all reasonable steps to prevent infant mortality, having established the right set of priorities, but is lacking the basic resources needed to take those steps, then the burden of public duty and gaze of public scrutiny must be on the international community.”    Zeid stressed that critical inequalities are at the root of preventable child deaths. The issue thus must be addressed through its root causes such as: gender inequality; harmful traditional practices including genital mutilation; forced, early and child marriage; gender-based violence; stigma; discrimination; unsafe households and environments; denial of the right to safe drinking water and sanitation; denial of the right to health; and women’s enjoyment of human rights.    High Commissioner Zeid was speaking at the launch of a UN Human Rights Office technical guidance note which lists tangible, concrete measures that States can take, using a human rights-based approach, to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and morbidity of children under five years of age. The note contains advice on legislation, coordination, planning, budgeting, implementation and international cooperation related to the issue.    “Through the human rights lens, transformative policy solutions emerge clearly,” he said.    The human rights-based approach requires States to invest in the health, education and empowerment of women and children, particularly in the poorest and most marginalized communities.    http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15058&LangID=E    16 September 2014    1 million children die during their first day of life from mostly preventable causes.    Analysis points to health system failures at critical time around birth as a significant contributing factor to these needless deaths.    Child survival rates have increased since 1990, during which time the absolute number of under-five deaths has been reduced from 12.7 million to 6.3 million, according to a report released today by UNICEF.    The 2014 Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed progress report, indicates that the first 28 days of a newborn’s life are the most vulnerable with almost 2.8 million babies dying each year during this period. One million of them don’t even live to see their second day of life.    Many of these deaths could be easily prevented with simple, cost-effective interventions before, during and immediately after birth.    Analysis points to failures in the health system during the critical time around delivery as a significant contributing factor to these unnecessary deaths. It also shows that there is considerable variation – from country to country and between rich and poor – in the take-up and quality of health services available to pregnant women and their babies.    Key findings in this study include:    Around half of all women do not receive the recommended minimum of four antenatal care visits during their pregnancy.    Complications during labour and delivery are responsible for around one quarter of all neonatal deaths worldwide. In 2012, 1 in 3 babies (approximately 44 million) entered the world without adequate medical support.    Evidence shows that initiating breastfeeding within one hour of birth reduces the risk of neonatal death by 44 per cent, yet less than half of all newborns worldwide receive the benefits of immediate breastfeeding.    Quality of care is grossly lacking even for mothers and babies who have contact with the health system. A UNICEF analysis of 10 high mortality countries indicates that less than 10 percent of babies delivered by a skilled birth attendant went on to receive the seven required post-natal interventions, including early initiation of breastfeeding.    Similarly, less than 10 per cent of mothers who saw a health worker during pregnancy received a core set of eight prenatal interventions.    Those countries with some of the highest number of neonatal deaths also have a low coverage of postnatal care for mothers. Ethiopia (84,000 deaths; 7 per cent coverage); Bangladesh (77,000; 27 per cent); Nigeria (262,000; 38 per cent); Kenya (40,000; 42 per cent).    Babies born to mothers under the age of 20 and over the age of 40 have higher mortality rates.    Additionally, the report shows that the education level and age of the mother has a significant bearing on the chances of her baby’s survival. Neonatal mortality rates among mothers with no education are nearly twice as high for those with secondary schooling and above.    “The data clearly demonstrate that an infant’s chances of survival increase dramatically when their mother has sustained access to quality health care during pregnancy and delivery,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director. “We need to make sure that these services, where they exist, are fully utilised and that every contact between a mother and her health worker really counts. Special efforts must also be made to ensure that the most vulnerable are reached.”    Inequality, particularly in health care access, remains high in the least developed countries: women from the richest households are almost three times as likely as those from the poorest to deliver their baby with a skilled birth attendant.    http://www.unicef.org/media/media_75892.html http://everyone.savethechildren.net/news    Every Newborn: an action plan to end preventable deaths. (WHO/Unicef)    Newborns now account for 44% of the 18,000 children under age five dying every day. Nearly 2.9 million newborns die each year, and an additional 2.6 million babies are stillborn. We now know how to reduce at least two thirds of these deaths.    Addressing newborn survival requires clear consensus on evidence, strategies and actions by a broad community of partners. Every Newborn brings together everyone who has a part to play.    The preparation was guided by the advice of experts and partners, led by WHO and UNICEF, and by the outcome of several multi-stakeholder consultations. The plan takes into account all inputs as well as findings from The Lancet Every Newborn Series published in May 2014. Discussed at the 67th World Health Assembly, Member States endorsed the document and made firm commitments to put in practice recommended actions. The Director General has been requested to monitor progress towards the achievement of the global goal and targets and report periodically to the Health Assembly until 2030.    Every Newborn was launched in June 2014, after dialogues around the plan and actions to support implementation in many countries.    Today we have unprecedented opportunities to turn the tide and address newborn health, as far more is known about effective interventions, service delivery channels and approaches to accelerate coverage and quality of care. Recently, renewed commitments to saving newborn lives and preventing stillbirths have been made by a number of governments and partners in response to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health and its accompanying Every Woman Every Child initiative, Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed, and to recommendations made by the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health and the United Nations Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children.    Every Newborn is an action plan to end preventable deaths. The plan sets out a vision of a world in which there are no preventable deaths of newborns or stillbirths, where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth celebrated, and women, babies and children survive, thrive and reach their full potential.    Nearly 3 million lives could be saved each year if the actions in the plan are implemented and its goals and targets achieved. Based on evidence of what works, and developed within the framework for Every Woman Every Child, the plan enhances and supports coordinated, comprehensive planning and implementation of newborn-specific actions within the context of national reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health strategies and action plans.    The goal is to achieve equitable and high-quality coverage of care for all women and newborns through links with other global and national plans, measurement and accountability. Strategic objectives and targets to achieve the goal of ending preventable maternal deaths have also been prepared. The objectives are complementary to those of the Every Newborn action plan and intended for coordinated implementation.    http://www.everynewborn.org/ http://www.carmma.org/ http://www.apromiserenewed.org/ Visit the related web page
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