Alarm as 473 children die every day

The UN has raised the alarm over the high number of children who die before they celebrate their fifth birthday.

Some 473 children aged below five years die in Kenya every day. And every hour, five more newborns die from preventable causes, according to Government and Unicef reports.

Shocking new details also show that Kenya is losing one woman every day due to pregnancy-related complications.

This means the country loses 5,840 women annually due to otherwise preventable causes including malaria, unsafe abortions and excessive bleeding.

A Government report released last week spells out new measures meant to reduce mortality among children and mothers. They include abolishing hospital fees for mothers and hiring of new hospital staff.

The UN agency reports that for newborns (children below 28 days), the rate increased from 31 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 32 deaths per 1,000 births in 1998 and then to 33 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2003.

It goes on to report that infant (under one year) mortality increased from 73 deaths per 1,000 live births to 77 deaths per 1,000 in 2003.

The mortality rate for children under five years of age rose from 105 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 110 deaths per 1,000 in 1998 and then to 115.

This, according to Unicef, means that one in every 30 children born in Kenya dies in the first 28 days of life.

It also means that one in every 12 children born in Kenya dies before their first birthday, and, one in every nine children dies before reaching their fifth birthday.

The newborns face their greatest risks during the first days and week of life, and 75 per cent of all newborn deaths take place in the first week of life, reports Unicef.

It cites the main causes of the deaths as infections, pre-term birth, low birth weight and asphyxia (lack of oxygen) at birth.

And in newborns, it gives the underlying causes of death as delay in recognising newborn danger signs, delay in referrals to health facilities with capacity to handle the danger, and delay in receiving essential and emergency newborn care in health facilities.

It also cites several services as critical, and which should be available. These are access to skilled care during pregnancy, delivery and after delivery period; access to newborn resuscitation skills, and early identification and treatment of infections.

Malaria has been cited by Unicef as the biggest killer of children in Kenya, killing 34,000 of them under the age of five every year (an average of 93 per day).

It says that about 3.5 million children under five years are at risk of developing severe malaria, which can result in severe anaemia and brain damage.

In addition, pregnant women are particularly susceptible to malaria, resulting in anaemia and low birth weight and maternal death. The agency also blames the deaths on poor breastfeeding habits among Kenyan mothers.

It says that though a child should exclusively be breastfed within the first six months, less than three per cent of babies are exclusively breastfed, with some mothers weaning their babies too early, even immediately after birth.

As a result of this, the babies get sick more often, and stand a higher risk of Vitamin A and Iron deficiencies.

It also leads to poor physical growth and development (one in every five babies are underweight, and one in every three babies are stunted).

Poor performance

The children also have poor brain development, leading to poor performance in school. Immunisation is one way of ensuring that children don’t die of preventable childhood diseases, including polio and measles.

According to Unicef, Kenya’s ability to remain polio-free is threatened by circulation of the polio virus in the neighbouring countries of Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, and the frequent migration of nomadic pastoralists across those borders.

Cases of polio in Kenya were confirmed in 2006, about 22 years after the last recorded case.