Top Officials from 80 Nations and a broad coalition of Public and Private Health Groups are calling for intensified global efforts to curb the number of children under five dying from preventable diseases. Public Health Officials say that the ambitious new strategy aims to reduce child mortality from 7.6 million to one million annually within two decades.
USSecretary of State, Hillary Clinton urged hundreds international health leaders and government representatives who met recently inWashingtonto redouble their efforts to combat child mortality. One day, all children – wherever they are born – will have the same chance to survive, she said.
Most delegates at the Meeting already know that the goal can be achieved through a variety of inexpensive and effective medical interventions.AnthonyLake, Executive Director of the UN Children’s Relief Agency, UNICEF, says the challenge is finding the political will to do it. We have a lot of work to do. Rhetoric is one thing and results are another, and we are going to achieve it, he said.
Lakesays one new goal for the U.N. agency is to target the five countries that annually account for nearly half of these preventable child deaths. We know through new methods and through dedicated work and through work in especially disadvantaged communities that we can achieve this goal and if we can achieve it then we have to achieve it, he said.
Dr. Raj Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development said that this time it is different. You see the five countries that have 50 percent of all child mortality –India,Pakistan,Nigeria, DRC andEthiopiacoming – being co-hosts – making strong statements about their national strategies, commitments, resources, and score cards. You see international organizations being willing to hold themselves to account. He is hopeful the new way forward of targeting resources into the most affected countries is a better approach to reducing child mortality. “There is no excuse why anybody dies from malaria,” said Ray Chambers, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Malaria. “And that’s why we turned up the heat – to eliminate deaths.”
Most deaths among children under five result from preventable illnesses such as malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, and from neonatal complications.“It has to be driven by the political will of each and every country – each leader at the national level, at the province level, at the district level has to support it,” said Seth Berkley, who heads the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
Berkleysays success in these efforts will require taking full advantage of new diagnostic technologies and new medicines – and making health services accessible to everyone who needs them.