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| Child Health Week project launched |
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Friday, October 24, 2008
By Our Correspondent
LAHORE
The Punjab Health Department in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has launched the Child Health and Sanitation Week as a pilot project in three districts of Kasur, Sheikhupura and Nankana Sahib from October 27 to November 1, 2008. It provides a model for improving health, nutrition, sanitation and hygiene practices.
Addressing the launching ceremony of the Child Health and Sanitation Week at a local hotel on Thursday, Dr Tanveer Ahmed, Provincial Coordinator of the National Program for Family Planning and Primary Health Care, Punjab, said that the objective of the CH&SW was to immunize every child from 0-2 years, de-worm every child from 2-5 years, vaccinate all the pregnant women against tetanus, provide health education for mothers (recognizing the danger signs of pneumonia) so that they use safe drinking water, wash hands before eating food and after defecation, construct, use and maintain latrines to avoid diseases.
He said that the concept of this third biannual event to help the existing health system and staff, while benefiting from the experience and capacity of Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) for provision of other interventions with a weaker delivery system.
Initially, he said, the communication activities would be taking place in three districts with plans for extending them to 10 districts next year. He said that out of 10 million children, who died in the world every year, 478,000 children under the age of five years died in Pakistan. It is ranked 8th in the world for number of child deaths with infant and under-five mortality rates of 78 and 98 of 1,000 live births respectively. Under Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he said, Pakistan was required to bring down infant mortality rate from 78 to 40 per 1,000 live births till 2015.
He said that the idea of launching special weeks was learnt from examples of other parts of the world, as for instance in under-developed country like Ghana, such a program with the UNICEF had reduced infant mortality from 82 in 1998 to 33 in 2003, while under five mortality was reduced from 155 to 79 during the same period.
He said that child immunization needed further improvement while diarhoea and Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs) were the main causes for deaths of children below five years of age. One of the evidence based intervention that reduces child mortality by 19 per cent was exclusive breastfeeding and continuing it with complementary feeding. He said the health status of under-five years of children was below acceptable levels as in Pakistan only 47 per cent of children were fully immunized while the figure for Punjab was 53 per cent. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Sabiha Khurshid, Project Director of National Mother Neonatal and Child Health Program, Punjab, said the activity should not be restricted to just one week, rather it should be an ongoing program to improve health and hygiene of mothers and children in the country.
She said that de-worming of children was extremely important as worms caused anemia among children, which was a major cause of complications among women as anemic women became anemic mothers and produced anemic children in a vicious circle of this disease. “The women must also be educated about birth spacing in order to regain their complete health,” she added.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
