Drowning, road
accidents leading
causes of children's deaths in 5 countries
THE United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
in a study unveiled Tuesday in Bangkok, said that drowning and
road accidents have become the leading cause of death and
disability among children older than one year of age in
Bangladesh, China, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
UNICEF expressed worry over the finding that
"intentional injury" or homicide and suicide were the leading
cause of death among adolescents, adding that the gathered
information may be underestimated due to the sensitive nature of
the incidents.
The study marks the first time that causes of
death and disability among a representative sample of all
children up to 18 years were reliably recorded, citing
face-to-face interviews done with more than half a million
households covering more than 2 million people in the five
countries.
Done over the last seven years, the study was
spearheaded by UNICEF and The Alliance for Safe Children (TASC),
and in partnership with local public health teams.
"Nearly half of all child deaths included in
the studies happened after the age of five. The most easily
preventable causes were suffocation and drowning which mostly
occurred in children under five years of age," said the UNICEF.
Anupama Rao Singh, UNICEF East Asia and
Pacific regional director, said nations must address causes of
childhood mortality in order to meet the Millennium Development
Goal of reducing child mortality.
The official said that "a judicious mix" of
public health interventions like awareness campaigns to
equipping children and their parents with knowledge and skills
can prevent the majority of these deaths."
To help curb child mortality, the UNICEF and
TASC are calling for better systems to record births and deaths,
and the expansion of child injury prevention programs.
They also urge nations to undertake campaigns
for better road safety to lessen accidents, increased
supervision and swimming lessons for children to prevent
drowning and household safety education to prevent suffocation,
falls, poisoning and animal bites.
UNICEF said survey results found injury as "an acute menace
to children's lives" and that the findings "indicate that the
causes of injury differ by age group and are associated with
exposure to different types of risks," including choking,
suffocation and falls for infants less than a year old; drowning
for 1-4 year-olds; drowning and road accidents for 5-9
year-olds; and risk-taking behavior and exposure to violence for
10-17-year-olds. - Anthony Ian Cruz
