The World Health Assembly has given a powerful endorsement to
new strategic directions for child and adolescent health. The strategy
brings together crucial elements to reduce childhood deaths and long
term disability. It also aims to reduce the 1.4 million adolescent
deaths each year.
Last year, the number of children and adolescents who died was
double the total number of adult deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis and
malaria combined. In 2000 10.8 million children under five years old
died, over half of them from just five preventable communicable diseases
and malnutrition. 99% of these deaths are in developing countries.
“This strong support and reinforced commitment by the Member
States to strengthen child and adolescent health comes at a crucial time
in our efforts to save the lives of millions of children“ says Dr
Tomris Turmen, Executive Director of Family and Community Health at WHO.
“In recent years there has been a decrease in funding for child heath.
This must be reversed. This expression of political will must be backed
by more money and more human resources to accelerate development and
scaling-up of effective child and adolescent health interventions at
both global and country levels.”
In addition to highlighting the urgent need to reduce child
mortality the strategy also focuses on adolescents. There are 1.2
billion adolescents world wide who face specific health threats such as
HIV/AIDS, tobacco and alcohol use, depression, suicide and violence. The
impact of these health problems is dramatic. Each day among adolescents
there are 6000 new HIV infections, 45,000 babies born, 40,000 young
people who start using tobacco, 10,000 attempted suicides with 250
deaths, 1,400 deaths from injuries and 16,000 girls who are sexually
abused.
An important new element of the strategy is the adoption of a
life course approach to child and adolescent health. This recognizes
that the quality of life at early ages is important not only for
immediate wellbeing, but also for health and development later in life
and, given the crucial links between maternal, neonatal and child
health, for the health of future generations.
“The improvement of child and adolescent health should be the
easiest of the Millenium Development Goals to achieve. We can prevent
and treat childhood diseases. We know a skilled attendant at delivery
can save the lives of many mothers and their babies. We know that if we
listen to young people the quality of health care they receive will
improve. But knowledge alone is not enough. We need to follow through
with new resources to revitalise our efforts. This strategy shows the
way,” says Dr Turmen.
Seven areas have been identified as priorities for future action:
Health of mothers and new borns the health and survival
of the child, especially in early infancy, is intricately linked with
the health of the mother, her nutritional status, and the reproductive
health care she receives.
Nutrition for healthy development better nutrition can
break the vicious spiral of poor nutrition leading to ill-health and
ill-health causing further deterioration of nutritional status often
leading to death.
Preventable communicable diseases can be drastically
reduced through three activities: the Expanded Programme on
Immunization, Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses, and
preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV and reducing HIV among
young people.
Injuries community-based interventions have reduced the
rates of injuries in many countries but further work is required to
broaden the range of effective interventions.
Physical environment can be improved by focusing on six
priority issues: household water security, hygiene and sanitation, air
pollution, disease vectors, chemical hazards, and injuries and
accidents. – Health of adolescents – can be safeguarded when valuable
relationships are established with trusted adults, and there are
structures and boundaries around behaviours. Supporting protective
factors are equally important to preventing risk factors.
Psychosocial development and mental health affect almost 20% of children who have one or more mental or behavioural problems.
Children and adolescents in difficult circumstances
including street children, children at work, children and adolescents
subject to commercial exploitation, those affected by natural or man
made disasters, or those living with disabilities need special
attention.
