Tens of thousands of children – mostly in rural parts of the southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan – have missed out on polio immunisation due to insecurity and threats to health workers, the Public Health Ministry (MoPH) has said. "We could not immunise about 120,000 children due to insecurity and attacks on health workers," Abdullah Fahim, spokesman of the MoPH…
SOUTH AFRICA: Country needs free universal education
The South African government should aim for free universal education, backed up by teacher training so as to make a significant impact on the quality of schooling, said the country's largest public service union. The ANC announced the decision to extend the “No Fee” school model from the poorest 40 percent to 60 percent of schools at its conference in Polokwane, Limpopo Province, in December 2007.
COTE D’IVOIRE: “Alarming” malnutrition in north
In Cote d'Ivoire government health officials and aid agencies are launching emergency feeding and special nutritional training in the north to respond to what nutrition experts call "alarming" malnutrition levels. …a July 2008 nutritional survey by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) conducted in collaboration with the national government nutrition programme …showed a global acute malnutrition rate of 17.5 percent among children from six months to five years old , up from 11.6 percent two years ago.
KENYA: Child deaths on the rise
The number of children dying before their fifth birthday in Kenya has risen in the past 10 years, according to health specialists. One in nine children dies before the age of five. “For every 1,000 children born, 121 die, compared with 97 in 1990,”… According to briefing notes by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the main direct causes of the high neonatal (0,27 days after birth) deaths include infection, pre-term birth, low birth weight and birth asphyxia. About 10 million children under-five die each year, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO) World Health Report. Under-nutrition is the underlying cause for at least 30 percent of the deaths.
AFGHANISTAN: Disability deprives children of education
There are at least 200,000 children in Afghanistan living with permanent disability…, according to a 2005 survey by Handicap International… Afghanistan has yet to join 134 other states that have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which asks signatory states to ensure that "children with disabilities are not excluded from free and compulsory primary education, or from secondary education". "About 75 percent of disabled children do not go to school,"…
French medical charity MSF says it leaving Niger
Medecins sans Frontieres announced Thursday it will leave Niger after failing to reach agreement with the government on continuing work. Niger's health officials have accused the group of inflating the number of undernourished children and of not working closely enough with the government.
Shakira to lobby Latin presidents on child welfare
Latin singing star Shakira will use her voice to lobby South American governments to help jumpstart a regional project to boost children's health and education. “There are difficult times coming in Latin America. Thousands and thousands of children will die if governments do not organize ways to distribute food during this crisis,” the singer says.