Saving Children's Lives: It's Not That Hard

[Snowy Owl]

Saving Children's Lives: It's Not That Hard

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/saving-children.html

Which of the following diseases or health conditions do you think causes the most deaths among children in the world's poorest countries: HIV/AIDS, malaria, diarrhea, complications during birth, pneumonia or measles? The U.S. Coalition for Child Survival recently posed that question in a survey of 1,045 American adults. Got your answer? Find out if you're right after the jump.
Forty-two percent of repondents cited HIV/AIDS and 18% said it was malaria. (The other breakdowns: 17% percent, diarrhea; 9%, childbirth complications; 4%, pneumonia; and 2%, measles.) But HIV/AIDS and malaria actually kill fewer children than the other conditions, which are easier to treat but receive relatively little funding. Reports the New York Times,

Public health doctors who have worked in poor countries where most of the deaths occur say what frustrates them most is how many children?s deaths could have been avoided by relatively cheap and simple steps.
Pneumonia, treatable with a 58-cent dose of antibiotic syrup, accounts for almost one out of every five deaths of children under age 5 each year. Diarrhea, treatable with 42 cents? worth of oral rehydration salts, was the reason for 17 percent of young children?s deaths.
And more than a third of child deaths resulted from complications related to birth ? a cluster of causes that includes tetanus (preventable with two 20-cent tetanus shots for the mother during pregnancy) and failure to breathe at birth (correctable with a simple mask and plastic bag device that can cost as little as $10).
​

The USCCS is pushing Congress to pass the U.S. Commitment to Global Child Survival Act. Details here. You know the drill: if you think it's a good idea, then tap some keys at your Congresspeople.

Child Survival Survey [USCCS]

In U.S. Poll, Most Fail a Quiz on Global Causes of Child Deaths [New York Times]