Beryl Thyer
Memorial Africa Trust
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Babies: Future
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Child survival experts have challenged the world to wake up to the unprecedented opportunity to save the lives of 30 million under 5s over the next decade. Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet, says that in 2003 it was very clear that the child had dropped off the global agenda for health. In the next two years a great deal has changed, but there is still great complacency, and genuine accountability remains.
High-ranking government ministers from around the world, many major non-governmental organizations, numerous influential Paediatricians and medical scientists have committed themselves to addressing the child health problem in a most positive way. They will all meet at two-yearly intervals until 2015, to assess achievements. The aim is to reach the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 by that time. Read more about it on this page.
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 Horton refers to the Bellagio Study Group on Child Survival
published in The Lancet.
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The most widely ratified set of development goals ever, signed by every country in the world, was based upon this. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 commits the global community to reducing the under 5 child deaths by two-thirds from the base-line of 1990, with particular attention to children under one year of age.
Intervening years have seen real progress in advocacy for child and newborn survival. A global partnership was formed, and in 2005 joined forces to reach coverage with newborn and child health interventions in 75 countries.
MDG 5 addresses Maternal health. MDG 6 addresses malaria and other major diseases - chiefly diarrhoeal diseases and pneumonia in childhood. These goals, and the reduction of poverty, are all inter-related.
In March 2005, The Lancet published a series of 4 articles spelling out the needs of children in developing countries. This in turn led to the 'Countdown to 2015 Child Survival Programme'. In December 2005 the first international conference in Tracking Progress in Child Survival, was held in London. I was there. It was an inspiring 2 day meeting. Similar conferences will be held every 2 years to 2015 to monitor the progress.
A mighty partnership has emerged. Twelve organizations are combining their power and resources toward the success of this project. The partners include WHO, UNICEF, World Bank, Save the Children UK and USA, The Lancet, The International Paediatric Association.
Sixty countries have been selected as priority targets. These are illustrated below. Cameroon is among them; I have coloured it black.
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Map ~ Source: Based on under-five mortality data published in the State of the Worlds Children 2006.
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The ideas which have been found to be most likely to succeed financially, are based on:
1. partnership in the programme
2. packages of interventions
3. delivery to be community based
Twenty packages of interventions have been defined, and include skilled care at birth, early and exclusive breastfeeding, immunizations, insecticide treated bednets for malaria prevention, nutrition and vitamin supplementation, better case management of diarrhoea. None of this is high tech or costly.
The idea of delivery of the packages through the community rather than through hospitals is not new. It is well-known that 75% of health care takes place in rural outreach clinics. It is also well known that 75% of health care funding goes to hospital care.
Intensive research has been done; workable and affordable plans have been laid; monitoring of progress is in place. A formidable band of experts are poised to move. Governments are aware of this long-term commitment. Help will come to those who respond. A first step to show the earnest their intent would be to minimize or abolish health care costs at least insofar as the under fives are concerned.
It has been estimated that if all measures were to be accepted by all target states, 6 million child lives could be saved each year in the 42 countries that account for 90% of child deaths. Furthermore the Countdown to 2015 project team have estimated that the likely cost will be 25$ US per child.
The necessary 6-7 billion $US required to drive the Project, represents less than 10% of tobacco product sales in the US.
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Thought for the day:
The sum required per child is also less than the government subsidy in Japan for the welfare of its cows. It could thus be argued that it is safer to be born a Japanese cow, than an African baby.
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Japanese cows
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African babies
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(Babies: Future)
Beryl Thyer Memorial Africa Trust, a UK registered charity ~ 1112603