- Most deaths of children under five are preventable or treatable in Myanmar, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The Under 5 Mortality Survey (2002-2003), conducted by the government and UNICEF, reported the main causes of early death as acute respiratory infection (21.1 percent), brain infection (13.9 percent), diarrhoea (13.4 percent), septicemia (10.7 percent) and prematurity (7.5 percent).
About three-quarters of all deaths occurred in the first year.
“Over two-thirds of child deaths could be prevented by inexpensive but proven high impact services like immunisation, better case management with antibiotics, insecticide-treated bed nets, supplementation of Vitamin A and other micronutrients,” Osamu Kunii, chief of health and nutrition at UNICEF, told IRIN in the former Burmese capital, Yangon.
As part of its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Myanmar has pledged to reduce its under-five mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015, from 130 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 43.
“To achieve the goals we need more internal efforts and external supports, especially resource mobilisation such as funding,” Kunii said, emphasising the importance of better collaboration and coordination between government, UN and NGO partners before 2015. continue
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