Leocadia Bongben
7 March 2008
The United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF's flagship report on "The State of the World's Children 2008: Child Survival", indicates that there is increasing child and infant mortality in Cameroon.
Presenting the report, the outgoing UNICEF representative to Cameroon, Silvia Luciani, stated that despite an amelioration observed in the economic performance and efforts to promote social development, a high mortality has been observed in children less than five years old.
This, according to the report, has increased from 139-149 per thousand from 1990 to 2006. This, she said, has put Cameroon among the 20 countries of the world out of 270 with a high child mortality rate. She said the deterioration is equally observed with infants of less than a year, with a high mortality from 85-87 from 1990-2006.
The report globally indicates that 62 countries are not making sufficient progress towards the attainment of the millennium development goals for child survival, 75 percent of these countries are in Africa. The report states that 26,000 children of less than five years die on a daily basis from preventable diseases in 60 developing countries.
She lamented that the situation is worrisome and needs to be taken seriously. She reiterated the need to accelerate child survival programmes through the delivery of all intervention programmes to all children in most remote areas as well as in towns.
However, she said that some progress has been made in immunisation, with more children get vaccinated.The report reveals that more needs to be done to increase access to treatments, means of preventing the devastating impact of pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria acute malnutrition and HIV.
The report equally describes the impact of life- saving measures such as exclusive breastfeeding, immunisation, insecticide and vitamin A supplementation to reduce deaths.
It was recommended that weak national health systems be reinforced with special attention paid to the needs of women, mothers and newborns.
Luciani identified the provision of community health as a critical element for the survival of the child. To this, she stated that investing in the health of the mother and the child is imperative.
Social Affairs Minister, Catherine Bakang Mbock, enumerated governmental actions for the protection of the child, especially the vulnerable and HIV/AIDS Orphans.Following a call from the African Union, on the inability of African countries to reach the MDGs, the World Health Organisation, WHO, World Bank and UNICEF defined a common action in the report.
Priority plan of action for this year is to develop an information base on the marginalised population such as pygmies and Mbororos.
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