Cape Town | Monday
UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said on Monday that child mortality rates in Afghanistan, where thousands of children die of preventable diseases each year, will worsen as refugees flood from the war-battered country.
“The plight of Afghanistan’s children was terrible even before the recent crisis,” she told the American Academy of Paediatrics’ Conference.
Bellamy said Afghan children often die of curable diseases such as measles and diarrhoea before the age of five. On average, one Afghan mother dies giving birth every 30 minutes, according to the UN Children’s Fund.
The four-day conference on children’s health runs through Wednesday, and was attended by 5 300 people. It has included a significant focus on the effects – both physical and psychological – bioterrorism has on children.
Panelists at the conference said children may react differently than adults to pathogens such as anthrax. Children are generally more vulnerable to biological or chemical agents because their immune systems aren’t fully developed and their skin is thinner, doctors said. They’re also closer to the ground, so heavy particles from an aerosol-propelled agent may affect them in higher doses.
“The issue of bioterrorism has been a tremendous burden on the health care community,” said Dr. Michael Grosso of Huntington Hospital in New York. “We are a source of information and are also here to reassure, which is hard when facts change from day to day.” – AFP