| Protect the African Child! Protect Africa's Future!
End the "5 By 5 Tragedy" of an Estimated 5 Million African Children Under the Age of 5 Dying Annually of Preventable, Manageable or Treatable Health Causes
On the occasion of Day of the African Child, the Africa Public Health Alliance & 15%+ Campaign is calling on African governments to end the "5 by 5 Tragedy" of an estimated 5 million African infants and children under the Age of 5 dying annually of preventable, manageable or treatable health causes.
Rotimi Sankore Coordinator, Africa Public Health Alliance & 15%+ Campaign stated: "While there may have been some progress over the years on infant and child mortality, such progress is clearly not enough and there is nothing to celebrate today."
"Not only is the scale of the loss a tragedy, the idea that there should be a celebration is a travesty. In reality the Day of the African Child should be a day of mourning across our continent."
"5 million child deaths a year is equal to roughly 13,700 African children dying every day of malnutrition, malaria, measles, diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, and other causes most of which are preventable, treatable or manageable. The rising levels of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV which is almost 100% Preventable will further increase Child Mortality. This is not what the children of Soweto whose struggle June 16 commemorates died for"
"By even the most generous standards, its difficult to see how the existing situation can be described as anything other than a failure of government policy on child health and protection in particular, and health development and financing in general."
He further stated that: "Even for those lucky or privileged to make it past their 5th birthday, their future is bleak."
"Healthy life expectancy across Africa is now at an average of 41.4 years [38.7 for Sub-Saharan Africa], compared to between 66.1 and 72 years for more developed countries. Its difficult to be optimistic about Africa's long term viability under such circumstance unless health development and financing policy improves drastically."
He underlined that: "For their to be any hope of meeting the `Millennium Development Goal 4 on reversing and ending Child Mortality, African governments have to meet their pledge to allocate 15% of national budgets to health, and per capita investment in health must also be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, or sextupled as needed. Strategic investment in vaccinations, health systems, human resources for health, and social determinants of health such as clean water, sanitation, food security and nutrition must also be implemented."
Special Notes:
1) The Africa Public Health Alliance and 15%+ Campaign salutes the life and work an outstanding African: Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Deputy Director for Africa, UN Millennium Campaign. 1961 - (Physical Departure) May 25th 2009. We also commiserate with our partners the UNMC team. Taju not only dedicated himself selflessly to the achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals. He was also a tireless campaigner for all the Health and Health Related MDGs, especially on Child and Maternal Health. We call on colleagues across Africa and globally to join in the 40 day prayers and activities to commemorate his life from the 3rd and 4th of July. (For list of activities please contact: africa.millenniumcampaign@undp.org , info@africapublichealth.org, and editor@pambazuka.org ).
2) The Africa Public Health Alliance and 15%+ Campaign commends the African Union Commission on the launch of the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal and Child Mortality in Africa (CARMMA), and calls for mass support for the campaign including urgent implementation of its goals by all governments.
3) The Africa Public Health Alliance and 15%+ Campaign believes that: Child health and protection should be at the top of every countries social justice and social development agenda. The first priority of governments is to ensure all citizens are alive and healthy. Without African children of today being able to equal the healthy life expectancy of more developed countries, Africa has no viable future - whether on a unified or un-unified basis - and the whole African integration and United States of Africa Project could shudder to a halt under the weight of the death of Africa's children, and overall falling healthy life expectancy.
Statement Ends
*Notes for Editors:
Day of the African Child:
16 June of every year is marked as the Day of the African Chid in remembrance of the massacre of innocent children of Soweto by the then apartheid regime of South Africa. The Day has been 'celebrated' on 16 June every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union.
Main Causes of Child Mortality:
Most child deaths in developing countries result from acute respiratory infections, pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles, malaria, malnutrition, neo-natal infections, pre-term delivery and a lack of oxygen at birth, tetanus and now the growing incidence of HIV amongst children. Majority of these deaths are preventable. Malnutrition, lack of safe water and sanitation are complicating factors in over half of infant and child mortality. Additionally most of the deaths could be prevented using evidence-based, and cost-effective measures such as vaccines, antibiotics, micro-nutrient supplementation, insecticide-treated bed nets, improved family care and breast-feeding practices, oral re-hydration therapy, and Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV.
Improved public health education on basic hygiene, and provision of primary health care would also make a huge difference especially in large urban and rural areas.
Protecting Children Also Means protecting Parents:
The failure to protect the lives of over 3 million adults including 265,000 maternal deaths a year, 1.5 Million HIV Deaths a Year, 640, 000 TB Deaths Per Year, and about 500,000 Malaria deaths a year over many years has also led to the existence of an estimated over 12 million African orphans from AIDS and other causes. Unless African governments ensure that social development underpins the African political and economic integration project, we are just laying the basis of a Pan African Hobbesian conflict involving millions of child soldiers.
The Africa Public Health 15%+ Campaign:
The Africa Public Health 15%+ Campaign was launched on December 10, 2006, (Human Rights Day) as the “15% Now Campaign” to urge African governments to meet their commitment to spend at least 15% of their domestic budgets on health.
In May 2009 following a presentation, and consultations during and after the 4th African Health Ministers Conference, the Campaign was upgraded to the “15%+ Campaign” which in addition to advocating for meeting the 15% pledge, now has 15 Principled Objectives including: calls for increased African per capita expenditure on health; specific expenditure to meet funding Gaps for the Health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on - Child Health (MDG 4); Maternal Health (MDG 5); HIV, TB and Malaria (MDG 6); and also specific and strategic investment in Health System Strengthening, and crucial pre-requisites and social determinants of sustainable health such as water, sanitation, nutrition, and human resources for health.
The Campaign also calls on African governments to ensure full implementation of the AU African Health Strategy, and for coordination of global solidarity on health with African health priorities and initiatives. Nobel prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu is Honorary Chair of the 15%+ Campaign.
For further information, contact us thru media @ africapublichealth.org:
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Tel: +2347040601571, Phone: +2347036886199; +2341661899 ;
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