Child survival
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© UNICEF/KOR00002 |
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Improving health and nutrition for children in DPR Korea |
The Issues
Every year, more than 1 million children in our region die before their fifth birthday. Millions more children risk life-long disabilities because of malnutrition, injury and other persistent health threats.
- Most deaths occur within the first few years of life. Around 45 per cent of child deaths under the age of 5 can be blamed on perinatal and neonatal events, including infections, birth trauma, birth asphyxia and complications of premature birth. These risks underscore the lack of improvement in maternal health and nutrition in our region.
- Increased inequities affect children. Diarrhoea and respiratory infections are still major childhood killers, and they directly result from the consequences of poverty: lack of safe water, poor sanitation and basic health services, and unsafe environmental conditions. Immunization coverage misses poor, remote and marginalized populations.
- Undernutrition. One of the most obvious results of poverty – undernutrition – plays a role in more than half of our region’s child deaths. In our region, the problem is not the lack of food, but the lack of varied, nutritious diets that bolster a child’s immune system.
- Unintentional injuries. Unintentional injuries, particularly drowning, kill more children in our region today than vaccine-preventable diseases.
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© UNICEF/EAP3954/Bloemen |
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Looking after the nutrition needs of girls in Papua New Guinea |
UNICEF in Action
UNICEF seeks to ensure that all children in our region survive, grow and develop by promoting the following practices:
- Skilled attendance during pregnancy, delivery and the immediate post-partum;
- Care of the newborn;
- Breastfeeding and complementary feeding;
- Micronutrient supplementing;
- Immunization of children and mothers;
- Integrated management of pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria;
- Use of insecticide-treated bed nets; and
- Advocacy for measures to prevent accidents and injuries.
