United Nations
A young person dies every 4.4 seconds
A doctor treats a child suffering from cholera in a Nigerian village clinic. photo
© Sunday Alamba/AP/dpa
Globally, access to good health care is far from normal. The victims: children, adolescents and young adults.
According to the United Nations (UN), many young people still die from treatable diseases or injuries because they do not have good medical care.
According to a new estimate, around five million children under the age of five will die worldwide in 2021, the UN reported on Tuesday. Another 2.1 million children, adolescents and young adults died between the ages of 5 and 24. This corresponds to one death worldwide every 4.4 seconds. There were also 1.9 million stillbirths. “Access to good health care remains a matter of life and death for children worldwide,” the UN said.
Most deaths could be avoided
“Behind these numbers are millions of children and families who are being denied their fundamental right to health,” said Juan Pablo Uribe, the World Bank’s global director for health, nutrition and population. According to the UN, premature births and complications during childbirth are the most common causes of death in the first month of life, after which infectious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria pose the greatest risk to children.
According to data from the United Nations and the UN children’s fund Unicef, there was progress between 2000 and 2021: the mortality rate for children under the age of five fell by 50 percent, that of the elderly up to the age of 24 by 36 percent and the number of stillbirths by 35 percent . Nevertheless: If mothers had been better looked after during pregnancy and childbirth and young people had had access to good health care, most of the deaths could have been avoided, said the UN children’s fund Unicef.
Additional investments are needed in basic medical care for all women and children. Children in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are particularly at risk.
“It is profoundly unfair that a child’s chances of survival can be determined solely by where they are born, and that there are such inequalities in access to life-saving health services,” said Anshu Banerjee, director of the Division of Maternal Health at the World Health Organization (WHO). , newborns, children and adolescents.