Nairobi hosts global health conference

A major conference on health kicked off in Nairobi on Monday amidst reports that rising cases of maternal deaths could scuttle efforts by countries to attain their development goals.

And President Kibaki warned that quick and urgent action were therefore needed to reverse this trend, he added.

The President said that globally, the number of maternal deaths had now risen to 536,000 per year, translating to one death per minute.

“In this day an age, it is acceptable that so many mothers are dying during child birth,” said President Kibaki as he officially opened the 7th global conference on health promotion at Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi.

Added the President: “We therefore need to identify innovative ways of accelerating the implementation of strategies targeting maternal and new born deaths and reverse this trend.”

He went on; “The failure to improving the maternal health of our citizens therefore means that other millennium development goals have very little chance of succeeding.”

His sentiments were supported by minister’s Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o (Medical Services), Beth Mugo (Public Health) and the World Health Organisation’s Regional Director for Africa Dr Louis Sambo.

Posed Dr Sambo; “Why should half a million women die of causes that can be prevented?”

He said that as a result millennium development goals were still far from being achieved in Sub Saharan Africa.

The theme of this year’s conference, bringing together health experts from about 102 countries is “Promoting health and development; closing the implementation gap.”

Despite this, President Kibaki said the country was 'very much’ on course of attaining its millennium development goals, owing to significant achievements on various fronts.

He said that even as the world witnessed a global child mortality rate reduction by 25 per cent from 90 to 65 deaths per 1000 live births, Kenya had actually recorded a 40 per cent decrease over the last five years.

This, he said, had largely been achieved through increased immunisation coverage and use of insecticide-treated bed nets to control malaria.

The President further said access to universal education had also experienced significant improvements with 88 per cent of children accessing primary education.

“This has occurred despite the various challenges the country and continent was facing as a whole including poverty, housing, food security, global financial crisis and the adverse effects of climate change,” he said.