TARGETS BY 2015:

Disease isn’t inevitable, nor do children with these diseases need to die. Research and experience show that six million of the almost 11 million children who die each year could be saved by low-tech, evidence-based, cost-effective measures such as vaccines, antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation, insecticide-treated bed nets and improved family care and breastfeeding practices.

PROVIDING HIGH-IMPACT HEALTH AND NUTRITION INTERVENTIONS:

Immunization is the first important step towards reducing child mortality. We have to aim to scale up proven, high-impact, cost-effective health and nutrition interventions to reduce the number of neonatal and young child deaths from preventable and easily treatable causes.

Breastfeeding protects babies from diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections, stimulates their immune systems and improves response to vaccinations. A mother’s health is also critical to newborns. We have to advocate and lend technical and financial support to comprehensive community health programs for expectant women.

IMPROVING FAMILY CARE PRACTICES :

We have to help families learn essential skills and basic health knowledge, particularly in the care of newborns. This includes best practices in breastfeeding and complementary feeding, hygiene and safe faeces disposal. We should also work for better integration among systems that deliver basic supplies and health services to the poorest families.

INCREASING ACCESS TO IMPROVED WATER AND SANITATION:

We should help develop systems to control water-borne diseases like Guinea worm and cholera that undermine child survival and development, reduce productivity and raise health-care costs. We should also help strengthen policies and budgets and support technical capacities in programmes for hygiene promotion, sanitation, cost-effective water supply options and water quality, particularly for poor rural and urban families.

COST-EFFECTIVE WAYS TO REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY:

Micronutrient fortification, measles immunization, case management of pneumonia and oral rehydration therapy for diarrhoea are the most costeffective interventions developing countries can use to achieve the millennium development goal of reducing mortality in young children.

However, reducing malnutrition in children and tackling the root causes of poverty, lack of education, and sex inequality will be necessary to accomplish the millennium development goal.