JSM - Edition Two

C hallenges A nd O pportunities L ocally A nd G lobally

What is Child Health? The state of being free from illness or injury for babies, toddlers, young children and teenagers. The main factors that determine child health throughout the world include access to health care, affordability of good health care, ability to obtain good nutrition through access to clean water and fresh food, war and culture beliefs. It is common for many children in third world countries who have poor health or a disease to be abandoned by their families, because no one else in the family wants to get the disease. These children find life very challenging because often there is no one looking after them. Most children suffer from childhood diseases in third world countries because infants and babies don’t routinely have immunisations. Newborns are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition and infectious diseases in third world countries, because their parents and siblings have a higher chance of suffering from disease, which may be passed on to the young baby. Currently, one in five children are missing out on immunisations worldwide.

It is an incredibly sad situation which results in many children dying at a very young age often from diseases that are preventable. Even for the children who don’t die from these serious diseases, they may be left with significant disability. Children suffering from Poliovirus can have difficulty walking and they often don’t have assistance to mobilise around their environment, for example they may have to get out of their wheelchair by themselves and crawl over a dirty bathroom floor to use the toilet. If you have a serious or infectious disease, normally you are excluded from your peers and community because people are scared of catching it. What are the statistics? 5.8 million children die each year from infectious diseases alone. Over 7.5 million children die from malnutrition and mostly preventable diseases each year. Malaria from tiny mosquitoes is responsible for 225 million acute illnesses worldwide and over 780 000 deaths per year.

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JSM Edition Two