Global Topic on Child Health

There are about 20 million young children worldwide that are vulnerable to early death and illness due to malnutrition.

Over 35% of all deaths under-five is heavily associated with malnutrition. The burden placed by diseases and illnesses on families and health systems aggravates existing inequalities.

The global data and statistics has recently reported 7.6 million under-five children died in the year 2010. Although the number of under-five deaths worldwide has declined from more than 12 million in 1990 to 7.6 million in 2010, the progress has been unequally distributed both across and within countries. Despite this advancement, major diseases continue to destroy the lives of young children.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) launched the integrated global action plan to end the two leading causes of child mortality--pneumonia and diarrhoea, by year 2025. It aims to integrate critical services and interventions to create healthy environments, promotes practices that are vital in protecting children from disease and the accessibility of the appropriate preventive and treatment measures. The solutions according to the WHO report do not require major advancement in technology as proven interventions exist.

Other initiatives in child health are:

The United Nations Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health launched in 2010 which calls for a "continuum of care" approach to services, Every Woman Every Child (EWEC) movement, Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed challenged the community to reduce child mortality in every country by 2035.

The need to identify those children at greatest risk, hardest to reach and most neglected, and targeting them with interventions of proven efficacy that will enable to close the gap and ultimately end the heavy toll of preventable child deaths. There is an emphasis in keeping the momentum of continuous better standards of child health from all relevant stakeholders including families, communities, schools and health care facilities. With a well-coordinated and integrated approach and through effective preventive strategies and delivery platforms, the goal to end preventable childhood deaths due to pneumonia and diarrhoea by 2025 looks optimistic.

World Health Organization, www.who.int