UNICEF/ GOB to tackle child mortality rate
It might be uncomfortable to think about but the latest global statistics reveal that Belize has one of the highest mortality rates in the Caribbean for children under the age of five years old. According to UNICEF, worldwide child mortality is at a record low but challenges in our region continue to pose serious problem for our youngest citizens.
Rana Flowers, Country Representative, UNICEF
“I think we got a little bit comfortable perhaps in the nineties, we were on a decline. And I think this tells us that if we get too comfortable and we take our eye off the ball and we don’t keep that emphasis there, then children will pay the cost. In Belize what we’re seeing is a fluctuating trend, we haven’t been able to establish a trend to a consistent decline. Now we have a rate in Belize which compared to some of our Central American or Latin American countries is lower, which is good, but it’s higher than the majority of our Caribbean colleagues. So I think that’s a good measure and I think that gives us a signal that there is still a lot of work that we need to do in Belize to lower that rate, to keep a focus, perhaps to increase investment to mother and child health areas.”
Jacqueline Godwin
“What is contributing to the mortality in Belize?”
Rana Flowers
“I think we can point to a number of factors and they cross the range from being health factors to actually being areas such as law and order. So we are seeing that children under five are mainly dying in their first year; they are dying of preventable diseases. They are dying of macronutrient deficiencies, they’re dying of not getting the right care at the right time, they’re dying from not having access to good hospital care, they’re dying of infections, of respiratory problems. But they are also dying in relatively large numbers from accidents, road accidents and also abuse.”
“The official figure, the way they do it is per one thousand births and in Belize that figure is twenty-four point eight or was for 2006, which was the most recent figure that we have. And the best way to see how that rates is to compare it some other country, so for example Barbados would have a figure of twelve, I think we’re seeing a figure of twenty or thereabouts in Jamaica. In countries such as Haiti we would see a higher figure than that and I think that gives us a measure and tells us that we have more work to do.”
According to Flowers, UNICEF will be working closely with the Government of Belize in an aggressive program to decrease the mortality rate. The initiatives will include preventative measures like exclusive breastfeeding which has dropped to a national low of only ten percent, and an education campaign for pregnant women.
