With the start of the 21st century, children’s death across the world had become a controllable phenomenon, mainly because most of the killer diseases that took away their lives especially in the developing and underdeveloped had already found cure, vaccines as well as preventable measures all across the world. Various non-governmental organizations such as the United Nation’s Children’s Fund and World Health Organization had set camps in most regions across the globe and especially in Africa, Asia and South America. These are some of the regions that had been heavily affected by children-related illnesses and this helped a lot to keep early deaths at bay. Eradicating children’s death caused by preventable diseases such as polio, measles, chickenpox, and malaria was one of United Nation Organization’s prime goals and objectives. A goal they achieved up to over 76%, according to the United Nation’s annual report in May 2001.
However, even after the tireless work that the organization in collaboration with various governments across the world as well as other nongovernmental organizations in these countries, children’s deaths continue to be on a high rate. The trend has especially been rising in the past three years, since 2008. This has led to various research groups and government ministries in the concerned countries and regions to carry out researches and closer observations to what may be causing these deaths.
As the world proceeded into the twenty first century, many people had not considered children’s deaths as a serious case affecting the globe, until in late 2007 after United Nations Organization through UNICEF and World Health Organization stated that the world was losing over eleven million children every year. This prompted various governments as well as non governmental organizations to find a way of minimizing these deaths, as well as find out what could be the main reason to these deaths (Connolly, 2011, p. 144).
Closer home however, many health departments in the United States such as State Children's Health Insurance Program and UN could not find a concrete reason to children’s death in USA, since it came to their attention that there was no one defined reason that took away a significantly high number of children, and most deaths took place due to varied reasons. It can therefore be concluded and supported that children’s deaths across the world have been caused by natural reasons and no one reason is responsible for these deaths. Rather, these deaths are caused by the specific conditions that these children are exposed to, depending on the environments brought up in as well as situations (Wagner, 2008, p. 109).
Causes of Children’s Deaths
In many parts of the world, depending on the environments and conditions those children are brought up in, the numbers of deaths recorded from children are varied and therefore mortality rates in various parts of the world differ too. United Nations Children’s Fund for example, in April 2011 noted that depending with the environments that children are brought up in; life expectancy and mortality rates in different regions also differ from one region to another. This is because a person’s life and character is molded by the environment and upbringing they get as a child. However, there are some reasons that have been pointed out to be the main causes to children’s death especially those under the age of five years.
A convention held in Geneva by United Nations Organization in May 2010 reported that over 78% of children’s deaths happen to those under the age of five years. The same findings were seconded by a meeting held in New York City in September this year. Of these 78%, eighteen percent of the same succumb to diarrhea. In 2010, an approximated 10.6 million children died across the world, as United Nations Children Funds in conjunction with world Health Organization reported (Roberts, 2010, para 3).
In 2010 alone, out of the10.6 million deaths, United States of America constitutes an estimated number of 23,000 children. This was an alarming number of children because the number of recorded deaths in hospitals and by the government in the previous year was 16,000. This got the attention of various health care organizations in USA because the numbers had been reported to be rising in the past three years.
State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) carried out a research that had lead to this steady rise in these deaths and from their research, most of the deaths that took place in these regions were situational, caused by the conditions to which the children were exposed to (Sternberg, 2009, para 4). For example, between March and April 2009, 40 children succumbed to H1N1 virus commonly referred to as Swine Flu, which was a seasonal epidemic that had hit various states across USA since early 2009. Out of the 40 recorded deaths, 36 of these were children under the age of five, which prompted the government through various organizations such as State Children's Health Insurance Program and Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to find ways through which these deaths could be minimized as well as take preventive measures and also educate the society (Sternberg, 2009, Para 6).
REFERENCES
BOOKS
Connolly, S. (2011). UNICEF: Global Organizations. Martin Grove Rd, Etobicoke: Saunders Book Co.
Wagner, M. (2008). Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First. California: University of California Press.
JOURNALS
Roberts, H. (2010). “Child Health.” Centers of disease control and prevention. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/children.htm
Sternberg, S. (2009). “40 children have died of H1N1 flu in USA.” USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-03-swine-flu-deaths_N.htm
