Ambitious Campaign Targets Tackling High Child Mortality Rate

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Addis Ababa — As the country lingers within top ten countries having an 'absolute highest' number of children death in the world, a new campaign entitled 'EVERY ONE' targets to end this rate by 2015. A report from Save the Children placed Ethiopia among the six countries where more than half of world's child death occurs, with others includes- India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and China. Further more, one in eight Ethiopian children die before reaching their 5th birthday, and 120,000 children die in the first month of life- often for treatable diseases like measles, pneumonia, complications during and post delivery, malaria, and diarrhoeal, with the last four ranking top four killers of children under-5. The 5-year campaign, launched last Sunday by Save the Children and its partners, sought to educate and inform women and their families on the importance of seeking professional care before, during and after the birth of a baby. Additionally, Save the Children said the Campaign is focused on mobilizing resources from donors, the private sector and individuals to support the implementation of key policies and programs that would radically reduce newborn, child and maternal deaths. Secretary General of Save the Children, Charlotte Petri Gomitzka dubbed the campaign as "the most ambitious campaign" in the history of Save the Children in Ethiopia, where she said "one of the toughest places to be a child." Together, she said "we will create a powerful movement proving that every one of us plays an important role in saving children's lives in a country." Thus, the campaign was intended to ensure world leaders stick to their promises to cut child deaths by 5 million a year by 2015, she said. Director General of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention General Directorate of Ethiopian Ministry of Health, Kesetebernan Admassu (Dr.), also said the country needs to build on the recent success in decreasing under-five mortality rate. "While we have made some important inroads into reducing under-five mortality - we still have ways to go" he said. Ethiopia has decreased under-five mortality rate by 40% since 1990, but reports claim high population growth rate (2.9%), inadequate food security and nutrition interventions and inadequate health care system, mean that the number of children actually being saved each year has been decreasing. "Today we still have newborns, children and women dying from diseases that we know how to treat and cure," said Dr. Kesetebernan, adding with the support and commitment of EVERY ONE Ethiopia can achieve MDG 4 and 5 by 2015. In addition, he expressed government's commitment to revolutionize country's health care infrastructure and delivery systems with the coming Health Sector Development Plan IV. Relevant Links East Africa Ethiopia Children UNICEF Ethiopia Country Director, Ted Chaiban said the way to this campaign in Ethiopia to succeed would be to support the health extension programme. "The health extension programme is the key mechanism for delivering low-cost interventions that can save the lives of thousands of children and women every year in Ethiopia," he said He also added that the mechanism should have adequate referral linkages to functional health centers and hospitals in the country. As Save the Children launches its biggest campaign to date, it estimates that an additional $40 billion - less than half the amount spent on bottled water each year - needs to be spent annually to reduce the numbers of children dying needlessly. But the global survey conducted in wealthy and developing countries reveals almost half of those surveyed (48%) thinks it costs at least $400 billion - to make the difference.