click to enlarge photo UNICEF, India
- 40,000 children under the age of five
die each day from malnutrition and vaccine preventable disease.
- Universal access to just four
low-cost health care measures could save the lives of half of the 15-18 million children
who die each year from preventable causes. Nearly 8,000 children are dying each day
because they have not been immunized; nearly 7000 are dying from dehydration caused by
diarrhoea, and approximately 6000 are dying every day from pneumonia, Making available
today's low cost solutions to all of there child health problems would cost approximately
$2.5 billion a year. This is as much as the 10% of the EEC's annual subsidy to farmers, as
much as the Soviet Union spends on vodka in a month or U.S. companies spend on cigarette
advertising yearly. $2.5 billion is as much as 2% of the developing world's military
spending and what the world spends on the military in one day.
- Nearly 100 million children of
primary school age are not taking part in any education programs.
- Only half the children in the
developing world have access to clean drinking water, and fewer have access to sanitary
waste facilities.
- Half a million mothers die annually
as a result of pregnancy or childbirth.
- Breast feeding is on the decline in
many developing countries although bottle-fed infants contract far more illnesses and are
as much as 25 times more likely to die in childhood than infants who are exclusively
breast fed.
- Each year at least 250,000 young
children lose their sight for the lack of a small amount of vitamin A in their diet. Two 2
cent doses of vitamin A could prevent this.
- Over 100 million children throughout
the world are forced to work under hazardous and often fatal conditions; many are employed
under slave - like conditions for no pay.
- More than one billion people - the
majority of them children - either have no home or live in inadequate housing.
- There are more than 10 million child
refugees around the world, comprising 60% to 70% of the refugee population. Malnutrition,
chronic infectious disease, physical and mental retardation are widespread in refugee
camps. Many children, often separated from their parents, have spent their whole lives in
closed refugee comps, encircled by gun towers and barbed wire.
Statistics from UNICEF 's State of the World's Children 1989 & 1990 report
PLAN International
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