Born to die? Infant mortality in Pakistan

[Naveed Yaseen]

Pakistan’s infant mortality rate at 10 per cent

Tuesday, October 21, 2008
By Imtiaz Ali

Karachi

Every year, 100 out of every 1,000 children born in Pakistan die, said Professor Dr Iqbal A. Memon, child specialist at Civil Hospital Karachi and professor at Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS).

Talking to The News about the high infant mortality rate in the country, Memon said that half of all the 100 babies mentioned above died before they were a month old. Half of these in turn will already have died before turning a week old. “Eighteen babies die before they are a week old,” he revealed.

In Pakistan, four million to five million babies are born every year. The most common causes of child mortality are pneumonia, diarrhoea, malnutrition, malaria, and measles. According to Memon, all of these diseases are linked to the socio-economic conditions of the children. “If you want to control these five killing elements, you have to alleviate poverty, reduce overcrowding, decrease malnutrition, increase health education, and control environmental pollution,” he said, and added that the management of these diseases required multiple strategies including breastfeeding, clean water, sanitation, and vaccinations.

Memon admitted that addressing all these issues is an enormous task and will take some time. He said that roughly, only 30 per cent to 50 per cent of the children in Pakistan are vaccinated, despite people being provided with free immunisation. “People are being provided with free immunisation against seven diseases, but its coverage and acceptance remains inadequate,” informed Memon. He believes that if routine immunisation was adequate, several respiratory and other diseases would have already been addressed.

He further says that the fact that clean water and adequate sanitation are not readily available aid diarrhoea and so add to the infant mortality rate. “As far as malaria is concerned, there has been no real decrease in the number of cases for years,” said Memon. “Cases of falciparum malaria have increased, which are dangerous.”

Many parents do not have access to basic health education which means that they are unaware of safe health practices for their children, such as washing hands before eating food. “We have a poor literacy rate,” lamented Memon. He said that the lack of bottled water and ice cream containing milk products may increase the chances of typhoid, but many parents did not know about that. Memon pointed out that malnutrition is another possible cause of death in children.

“Around 50 per cent of the children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition,” he informed. According to him, contamination of water, frequent infections and myths compound the malnutrition problem. Memon listed several other reasons for the poor health of children. Among newborns, asphyxia is a leading cause of death, but with proper care during pregnancy and after delivery, it need not be so. He explained that many newborns die of infections that can be significantly reduced with safer deliveries, early recognition and referral system and treatment, and breast feeding. He pointed out that with appropriate antenatal care and the correct handling of newborns the infant mortality rate can be reduced.

“Breastfeeding is not maintained beyond the initial weeks,” he said. Memon stressed that exclusive breast feeding has immense benefits for the baby, mother, family, and the nation. Moreover, he said that it was sad that the advantages of breast feeding were not widely known throughout our society. “This is one remedy that can save many lives, prevent many diseases, support the economy of the family and nation, and deliver intelligent and healthy children,” he said.

The high mortality rate can also be attributed to the lack of knowledge of antibiotics. “The proper care of antibiotic requires knowledge of microbes through a sentinel system which is not available in the country,” he said. However, there has been some progress. “Cases of small pox, tetanus, measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, and polio have been reduced,” said Memon and adding he said, “They can be controlled further by undertaking simple measures, such as vaccinations.”

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=142238