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| Saturday, 9 October 2004 |
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Healthcare privatisation fuelling Asian child deaths: UN report BANGKOK, Friday (AFP) The rising cost of privatised healthcare in Asia is behind a rise in child deaths in Cambodia and caused more than half the region to fall behind global goals to lower child mortality, a United Nations report warned Friday. Cambodia, where one in seven children die before the age of five, is the only country in the region where child mortality had risen since 1990, but others lag well behind death reduction goals set by the UN, the organisation's children fund (UNICEF) said. After Cambodia, the fund's 'Progress for Children' report revealed that North Korea, Myanmar, Pacific island nations and Papua New Guinea fared the worst in the Asia-Pacific region, reporting little or no reduction in under-five mortality since 1990. The transition from planned to market economies in many Asian nations was behind much of the problem with free state health services giving way to often costly private clinics, according to the fund. "Poor people are often unable to pay for those services and stop bringing children for treatment until the very last moment," UNICEF Regional Health and Nutrition adviser Dr Steve Atwood told AFP. "Vaccinations are also a major concern." He said where fees have been introduced for treatment, immunisation rates had fallen. High childbirth mortality rates, representing 45 percent of all under-five deaths, and poor sanitation in many nations added to the problem. After childbirth, diarrhoea was the second largest killer of under-fives at 17 percent followed by acute respiratory infections at 16 percent. Malnutrition was a contributory factor in more than half of all deaths, said UNICEF, warning that in some parts of Asia, malnutrition rates were almost comparable to sub-Saharan Africa. The fund said the current slowdown meant that only 13 of 27 countries in the region, for which figures were available, would meet the UN's Millennium Development Goals, but said some countries, such as Malaysia, had bucked the trend. In 1990 Malaysia had a child mortality rate of 21; in 2002 it was recorded at eight, putting it just behind its target of seven deaths for every 1,000 live births. Brunei, South Korea and Singapore also performed well, according to UNICEF. "The success of these countries has been due not only to their relative economic prosperity but also enlightened leadership and the political will to invest in providing basic healthcare for all citizens," said Atwood. UNICEF said Asia's overall child mortality figure has dropped by more than 75 percent since 1960, but that rates had dropped by less than two percent annually over the last decade, compared to five percent throughout the 1960s and 1970s. To meet the UN's goals, which all member nations have agreed to, countries must achieve a two-thirds reduction in their 1990 under-five child mortality figures by 2015. This requires an average annual improvement of roughly 4.4 per cent. |
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