In Tajikstan, 10-year-old Mehrdod is vaccinated as part of 2004’s first national immunization campaign against measles. The campaign aimed to reach almost 3 million children, some 50 per cent of the total population of the country.
UNICEF/ HQ04-0650/Giacomo Pirozzi
In the UK most children see a doctor when they need to and have a hospital fairly close by. However, over 290 million children in the world still have no access to health care at all: that’s almost 15% of all children in developing countries.
Access to health care can mean the difference between life and death, for example 1.4 million children die every year because they haven’t received the right vaccinations- that’s 4,500 children each day. Overall, 26.3 million children do not receive a full schedule of routine vaccines every year. Around six out of every ten children who die in developing countries are killed by measles, mumps, malaria, or acute respiratory infections (serious infections that affect their breathing). The shocking fact is that most of these deaths could be prevented.
Contributing factors
Children who live in poverty have an even greater need to be protected against illnesses and infections, because malnutrition makes their immune systems weaker. This means that their bodies find it harder to get better too.
In addition, at present about 80 per cent of health care in developing countries occurs in the home – and the majority of children who die do so at home, without being seen by a health worker. As many as 40 per cent of child deaths could be prevented with better family and community care – not high-tech health equipment, but access to information, support and basic supplies.
However, the biggest threat facing the world’s children is now the HIV virus. Each year around 400,000 children are born HIV positive and children under 16 accounted for 290,000 AIDS-related deaths last year. As yet there is no cure, though there are effective ways of preventing children getting the virus in the first place. Read more about HIV and AIDS.
How UNICEF helps
UNICEF works with governments, health providers and communities to help families to learn skills that will improve their health. It also helps to set up systems to make sure that basic supplies and health services get to the people who need them most - both during emergencies and in normal everyday life. UNICEF is also currently providing some 40 per cent of the world’s children with vaccines for preventable diseases each year.
Further issues