Healthcare, global inequalities: every 4 seconds in 2021 a child or young person has lost their life

ROME – Five million children have died before the age of five and 2.1 million children aged 5 to 24 have lost their lives during 2021, according to data released by the United Nations Panel on Child Mortality ( AN IGME). Most of these deaths could have been avoided if access to efficient and quality child health care services had been guaranteed. “Every day too many parents are faced with the trauma of losing their children, sometimes even before their first breath,” said Vidhya Ganesh, Director of the Data Analysis, Planning and Monitoring Division of theUNICEF. Which concludes by emphasizing the need to make investments in the health system aimed at minors.

The good news. Despite the dramatic nature of the data, the good news is that the same data nonetheless tell of a slight decrease in infant deaths, especially in the first ten years of the new century. More specifically: the mortality rate has decreased by 50 percent since the beginning of the 2000s, while the mortality rates in older children and young people have decreased by 36 percent. The number of stillborn babies dropped by 35 percent. This improvement is attributable to the increased investments that have been made in strengthening primary health systems for the benefit of women, children and young people.

The bad news. Unfortunately, the improvements recorded in the early 2000s decreased from 2010 onwards due to a lower allocation of resources in basic healthcare. Fifty-four countries will fail to meet the Sustainable Development Goals for under-five mortality if adequate policies are not implemented. This means that nearly fifty-nine million children and young people will die before 2030 and nearly sixteen million will be stillborn.

The opinion of the World Health Organization. “It is unfair that a child’s chances of survival depend only on the place where he was born and it is dramatic that there are such vast social discrepancies in the possibility of accessing a quality health system” explain the WHO. Reports show that even today sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are the countries where children are most at risk. Although sub-Saharan Africa had only 29 percent of global live births, 56 percent of children under five died in the region in 2021. Babies born in sub-Saharan Africa are at the highest risk of infant deaths worldwide, fifteen times higher than the risk faced by children in Europe and North America. Sub-Saharan Africa also boasts the dubious distinction of being the country with the highest number of stillborn babies. In this part of the world, a mother has a risk of giving birth to a lifeless child seven times higher than in Europe and North America.

The position of the World Bank. “These numbers speak to us of millions of children and families who are denied the fundamental right to health”, explained Juan Pablo Uribe, director of the Global Financing Facility. “We need political will and leadership to finance primary health care, which is the most important investment a country can make.”

The effects of COVID-19. While COVID-19 has not directly increased child mortality, the pandemic has nonetheless increased the survival risks for young children. Among the causes is the interruption of vaccination campaigns, nutritional services and access to basic healthcare. The issue of vaccines is the one that worries the most because the pandemic has marked the largest decline in vaccinations in the last thirty years, exposing the most vulnerable infants and children to a greater risk of dying from diseases that, thanks to vaccines, would easily avoidable.