2.5 lakh children die from preventable causes a year

Around 2.5 lakh children die from easily preventable causes in Bangladesh a year before they reach the fifth birthday, speakers at a national consultation on newborn and child survival said yesterday.
Save the Children organised the consultation to launch a five-year worldwide campaign titled ‘Every One’ to create a common platform for all the agencies working to save the children’s lives.
Millennium Development Goal 4 requires a two-thirds reduction in child mortality by 2015.
Though Bangladesh is on the track to achieve the goal, the country still has to do a lot to stop preventable deaths of children, the speakers said.
The direct causes of deaths include pneumonia, measles, diarrhoea, malaria, HIV and Aids and neonatal conditions, which are easily treatable diseases, according to a Save the Children report presented at the consultation.
Nearly 90 lakh children die a year across the world before reaching their fifth birthday, meaning one child dies every three seconds, said the report. Around 97 percent of those children die in low- or middle-income countries.
Around 69 children in every 1000 die in Bangladesh before reaching the fifth birthday, said Country Director of Save the Children-USA Kellend Stevenson.
“The deaths are preventable and the health conditions of which they die are treatable,” he added.
Country Director of Save the Children-Sweden-Denmark Niels Bentzen said all the children, who are members of the human family, have the right to life and survival.
“Every child has right to family care, healthcare and education and must have protection against negligence, cruelty and exclusion,” he said.
The aim of the campaign is to provide every child an equal chance to survive, said Bentzen.
The campaign is a collaborative effort by all the Save the Children agencies.
Save the Children reaches 8 lakh children in Bangladesh with various life-saving programmes.
Country Director of Save the Children-Australia Sultan Mahmud, Country Director of Save the Children-UK Suman Sengupta, women’s rights activist Farida Akhtar, Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury of Gonoshasthaya Kendra and FBCCI President Annisul Huq also spoke.

Courtesy of The Daily Star