Alliance2015 joins the Child Health Week

Fadumo è madre di quattro figli piccoli, e da tre anni vive nel campo sfollati di Buulo Yakub, nella regione di Hiran.

Alliance2015 and its members are partners of the Child Health Week (12-19 November 2018), the iniative held by Save the Children for raising national and global awareness about the leading causes of child death.

Latest data on child mortality report that about 10 children under 5 die every minute. Nearly half of these deaths occur in the newborn period, when the child is much more vulnerable to diseases.

The leading causes of death are preterm birth complications (18%), pneumonia (16%), intrapartum related complications (12%), diarrhea (9%), and sepsis/meningitis (9%) (WHO). Children affected by malnutrition are more likely to die by common and normally treatable illness: according to WHO, nutrition-related factors contribute to about 45% of deaths in children under 5.

Child Health Week focuses particularly on pneumonia, newborns and water, sanitation and hygiene, commemorating the World Pneumonia Day (12 november), the World Prematurity Day (17 november) and the World Toilet Day (19 november), and launching messages to the main political actors involved to ask for more engagement.

In particular, the campaign addresses specific messages to EU, asking to increase the level of funding for food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture and to prioritize the nutrition issue within the Multi-Financial Framework 2021-2027.

Messagges related to malnutrition and undernutrition refer to the Global Hunger Index data, since the report includes indicators specific to children as to reflect the nutrition status within a particularly vulnerable subset of the population.

Find out more on the Child Health Week official platform update and discover what Cesvi is doing in Somalia and Myanmar to protect children from life-threatening disease.