More than 100,000 children under 5 die in South Africa each year

In South Africa, there has been a rapid increase in child mortality - more than 106 000 children under the age of five die each year.

A study released in 2003 by the Burden of Disease Research Unit of the Medical Research Council (MRC), has shown that the below-five mortality rate in 2000 was estimated at 95 per 1,000 children.

Infant mortality has risen to 60 per 1,000 live births, compared to the 1998 figure of 45 per 1,000.

The sharp increase in child mortality has been attributed to a deterioration in child health, despite free health care and nutrition programmes.

HIV and Aids is the largest cause of fatalities in children younger than five, accounting for 40 percent of deaths.

Lower respiratory infections, diarrhoea, low birth weight and protein energy malnutrition, all associated with poor socio-economic conditions, were responsible for 30 percent of childhood deaths.

The study indicated that HIV and Aids resulted in the deaths of 42,749 children under the age of five in 2000, with 32,636 fatalities recorded for the the other major causes.

As children get older, the leading causes of death shift away from HIV and Aids, with road traffic accidents accounting for about 50 percent of deaths in the five to nine-year-old age group. Girls in this age group are still vulnerable to HIV and Aids, which accounts for 33 percent of fatalities.

HIV and Aids fails to feature in the 10-14 year-old age group, where road traffic accidents and homicide or violence are responsible for 33 percent and 15 percent of deaths respectively.

MRC researcher Nadine Nannan points out that although the data between 1992-2002 shows an
increase in child mortality, there is no comparative data yet available for post 2002.

’Projections showed that child mortality would peak at around 2002/03 due to the HIV/Aids pandemic, but subsequent data is yet to be released,’ said Nannan.

Nannan cautioned that current data was gathered prior to government’s roll-out of its mother-to-child transmission prevention programme.

’A mother-to-child transmission prevention programme could reverse the trend of increasing child mortality as the number of infected infants is reduced,’ she said.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), concurs with the MRC study, saying child mortality in South Africa had risen between 1990-2002. Unicef says 42 percent of global deaths in children under the age of five occur in sub-Saharan Africa.

World governments pledged in 2000 to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds - from 93 per every 1 000 to 31 per every 1 000 by 2015.

Unicef executive director, Carol Bellamy, says an estimated 11-million annual child deaths are preventable. ’Some are the direct result of illness and others are due to indirect causes such as conflict, marginalisation and HIV/Aids,’ said Bellamy.

Bellamy pointed out that half of child deaths were caused by malnutrition and the lack of safe water.

She said that cost-effective measures such as vaccines, antibiotics and micronutrient supplementation, would save the lives of million of children.

’The world knows what it takes to improve child health and survival yet millions of the world’s young citizens still die because they lack access to basic services,’ said Bellamy.

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