Henrietta Fore
An additional 6,000 children could die every day from
preventable causes over the next six months as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to weaken global health systems and disrupt routine services.
The estimate is based on an analysis by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health, newly published in The Lancet Global Health journal.
Based on the worst of three scenarios in 118 low- and middle-income countries, the analysis estimates
that an additional 1.2 million under-five deaths could occur in just six months, due to
reductions in routine health service coverage levels and an increase in child wasting.
These potential child deaths will be in addition to the 2.5 million children who already die before their 5th birthday every six months in the 118 countries included in the study, threatening to reverse nearly a decade of progress on ending preventable under-five mortality.
Some 56,700 more maternal deaths could also occur in just six months, in addition to the
144,000 deaths that already take place in the same countries over a six-month period.
“Under a worst-case scenario, the global number of children dying before their fifth birthdays could increase for the first time in decades,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “We must not let mothers and children become collateral damage in the fight against the virus. And we must not let decades of progress on reducing preventable
child and maternal deaths are lost.”
The UN Agency said in countries with already weak health systems, Covid-19 is causing disruptions in medical
supply chains and straining financial and human resources.
In a commentary to the Lancet report, UNICEF warned these disruptions could result in potentially devastating increases in maternal and child deaths.
The estimates show that if, for whatever reason, routine
health care is disrupted and access to food is decreased, the increase in child and maternal deaths will be devastating.
“The greatest number of additional child deaths will be due to an increase in wasting prevalence among children, which includes the potential impact beyond the health system, and reduction in the treatment of neonatal sepsis and pneumonia, ” it stated.
#Reimagine
UNICEF has thus launched, a global campaign to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic from becoming a lasting crisis for children, especially the most vulnerable children.
-Through the campaign, #Reimagine, UNICEF is issuing an urgent appeal to governments, the public, donors and the private
sector to act now to stop the disease from spreading, help the sick, and protect first responders on the frontlines risking their own lives to save others.
“Even when the pandemic slows, each country will have to continue to work to mitigate the knock-on effects on children and address the damage inflicted.
Communities will also have to work together, and across borders to rebuild and
prevent a return of the disease, “it said.
UNICEF again noted that systems and policies must protect people, all the time, not just in the event of a crisis.
“The Covid-19 crisis is a child rights crisis. We need an immediate-, medium- and long- term response that not only addresses the challenges created by the pandemic and its secondary impacts on children, but also outlines a clear version for building back a better world when the crisis finally recedes. For that, we need everyone’s ideas, resources, creativity and heart.” said Fore. “It is our shared responsibility today, to reimagine what the world will look like tomorrow.”
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri