While the situation of women and children has improved significantly compared to 20 years ago, many young people still die from treatable diseases and injuries due to a lack of access to or insufficient medical care.
Mothers and children wait for medical examinations at a hospital in Tshopo, in Congo-Kinshasa, October 5, 2022.
(dpa)
According to the United Nations (UN), far too many young people still die from treatable diseases or injuries because they do not have good medical care. Children in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are particularly at risk. According to the UN, additional investments in basic medical care for women and children are necessary.
According to a new estimate, around five million children under the age of five died worldwide in 2021, the UN reported on Tuesday. Another 2.1 million children, adolescents and young adults died between the ages of 5 and 24. This corresponds to one death worldwide every 4.4 seconds. There were also 1.9 million stillbirths. “Access to good health care remains a matter of life and death for children worldwide,” according to the UN.
There was some progress between 2000 and 2021: the under-five mortality rate fell by 50 percent, that of those aged 24 and under by 36 percent, and the number of stillbirths by 35 percent. Nevertheless: If mothers had been better looked after during pregnancy and childbirth and young people had had access to good health care, most of the deaths could have been avoided, said the United Nations Children’s Fund Unicef.
“It is profoundly unfair that a child’s chances of survival can be determined solely by where they are born, and that there are such inequalities in access to life-saving health services,” said Anshu Banerjee, director of the Division of Maternal Health at the World Health Organization (WHO). , newborns, children and adolescents.