PRESS BRIEFING ON CHILD SURVIVAL BY UNICEF, WHO HEADS

PRESS BRIEFING ON CHILD SURVIVAL BY UNICEF, WHO HEADS

While there had been an improvement in global health and living standards, a great gulf in those areas had opened between the developed and developing worlds, between urban and rural populations and between women and men, Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told correspondents this afternoon at a Headquarters press briefing.

Accompanied by World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Jong-Wook Lee, Ms. Bellamy went on to say that while the number of under-five deaths over the last four decades had fallen from about 20 million to around 11 million per year, worldwide, those figures had almost doubled in sub-Saharan Africa over the same period.  Also, women in sub-Saharan Africa faced a one in 13 chance of dying in childbirth, compared to the one in 4,000 chance in the industrialized countries. 

Twenty-five years ago, she continued, UNICEF and WHO had co-hosted a global conference in Kazakhstan on primary health care, which set the goal of achieving health for all by 2000.  While that goal had not been reached, there had been significant progress.  The challenge now was to reach the un-reached. 

She said that to reduce child deaths even further, it was necessary to sustain and strengthen present efforts in primary care at the community level.  At the same time, it was important to get life-saving knowledge and commodities into the home, such as treated bed nets to protect against Malaria -- still the largest killer of children in Africa, oral re-hydration solutions to treat diarrhoea, as well as simple hygiene education.  Such home-based interventions along with breastfeeding could save millions of lives a year.  “Only by ensuring that children get proper care in the home as well as in health centres can we make and sustain progress against child mortality”, she stressed.

She also emphasized girls’ education, saying that making a strategic investment to get girls into schools was critical to achieving and sustaining important health initiatives.  In most parts of the world, girls faced the highest barriers to getting an education.  Once educated, children, particularly girls, would be more capable parents, and their children were more likely to survive, stay healthy and go to school.  To break the cycle of poverty that contributed to many basic health challenges, it was necessary to deal directly with health issues and break the cycle.  One way to do that was to ensure that children received an education, especially girls.

She added that perhaps no two United Nations agencies worked more closely and in a more complementary manner than UNICEF and WHO.  Some of the greatest triumphs in the public health area in recent decades, including the eradication of smallpox, had a lot to do with the partnership of those two agencies.

Dr. Lee also emphasized the partnership between UNICEF and WHO, and highlighted in particular, WHO’s commitment to HIV/AIDS, especially WHO’s “3 by 5” initiative to provide 3 million people living with AIDS with antiretroviral medicines by the end of 2005.  WHO, together with UNICEF, also needed to finish the work of polio eradication by 2005. 

Asked about the progress being made in Africa regarding HIV/AIDS, Dr. Lee said that the situation had become a crisis, particularly on the treatment side.  Access and price were obstacles to providing treatment to those who needed it.  It was necessary to scale up the treatment, which was now only available to 350,000 people outside of North America and Europe.  Out of those 350,000 with access to the treatment, 300,000 were in Brazil.  It was necessary to take some bold initiatives in Africa.  

Ms. Bellamy added it was important to understand that while prevalence rates were highest in sub-Saharan Africa, the “huge catastrophe” of HIV/AIDS was a global problem.  She also reminded correspondents of the upcoming high-level meeting of the General Assembly on 22 September devoted to the follow-up of the special session on HIV/AIDS. 

Asked how people were being educated about HIV/AIDS, she said that the media was an important tool, particularly to reach young people.  Half of the 12,000 newly infected people every day were young people.  Also, young people were more apt to change their behaviour, which was crucial for prevention.  There were also attempts to get religious leaders and heads of countries to undertake advocacy efforts.  No United Nations agency could solve the HIV/AIDS crisis, which required the full mobilization of society in general.  

On the health of children in conflict areas, Ms. Bellamy said that, in Iraq, there was agreement among the United Nations agencies as to who would be the lead agencies.  For example, WHO was the lead agency on health and UNICEF was the lead agency on water and sanitation.  Within health for example, UNICEF took the lead on immunization and malnutrition, and WHO was focusing on making sure that health centres and hospitals were functioning.  In Afghanistan, even while the bombing was going on, WHO and UNICEF were supporting a polio campaign that was taking place simultaneously in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

On the situation of Iraqi children, she noted that even prior to the latest war, 25 per cent of Iraqi children were malnourished, and one out of eight children were dying before the age of five.  The bombing itself did not have a major impact on the hospitals and delivery systems.  However, the subsequent vandalism, looting and burning had had a very significant effect. 

For example, a good deal of the water was treated water.  To the extent that electricity grids were damaged and treatment plants not functioning, the availability of clean water was still very limited in parts of Iraq.  Even now, UNICEF was supporting the transport of clean water into the south and Baghdad on a daily basis in water tankers.  The bombing of the United Nations headquarters on 19 August had and would continue to have an effect on the ability of all United Nations agencies to carry out their work.  While they did have staff in the country and were functioning, the security situation was restricting their capacity to “be out there” and carry out their work.

Asked what he would be emphasizing during next week’s high-level General Assembly meeting, Dr. Lee said he would focus on antiretroviral treatment, and appeal to the international community for a massive scale up of people on such treatment.  He would also highlight details regarding resource needs and specific contributions from other United Nations agencies, such as the need to standardize treatments, the need to form emergency action teams to dispatch to countries and the need to set up a facility to provide antiretroviral drugs rapidly at an affordable price.  The need to increase training for people in sub-Saharan Africa would also be stressed.   

* *** *