UNSAFE ANYWHERE
Danger lurks in the safest places for Asian children, warns WHO
By P. Parameswaran
Agence France- Presse
MANILA
The safest places for children in Asia are also the most dangerous.
More than 1,000 children in the region die every day before reaching their fifth birthday nearly always due to illnesses related to the places where they live, learn, and play, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns.
The paradox is that "these children are most in danger in the places they should be the safest-at home, at schools and in their local community," laments Shigeru Omi, WHO director for Western Pacific.
"And the big number of children dying everyday in East Asia and the Pacific illustrates how serious the problem is," Omi said on the eve of the April 7 observance of World Health Day, which this year is dedicated to "Healthy Environments for Children."
The key environment-linked conditions that cause deaths among children under five years old in the region are diarrhea, malnutrition, acute respiratory illnesses, malaria, and measles.
Omi lists six reasons for this: poverty, uncontrolled urbanization, rapidly changing lifestyle, low level of education among parents and child caretakers, negative influence of the mass media, and insufficient government commitments.
"Every child has the right to be raised in a healthy environment," he said. "But for many children, the reality is that poverty deprives them of that right."
Under poverty-stricken condition, children suffer the most as their fragile immune, digestive and central nervous systems are susceptible to many kinds of health problems, he said.
For example, the contaminated water children drink or in which their food is cooked threatens their lives with diarrhea and other intestinal problems.
According to the WHO, some 100 million children in 37 countries in East Asia and the Pacific do not have access to safe water. Other concerns are air pollution caused by open fires used for cooking and heating inside congested homes as well as cigarette smoking by parents-they put the children at risk to respiratory illnesses.
They are aggravated by malnutrition, inadequate sanitation and waste disposal, insufficient food hygiene, poor housing, child abuse and neglect, home accidents, and unsafe use of dangerous chemicals.
The economic burden of environment-linked disease among children is enormous. In the United States alone, the annual cost of certain childhood environmental diseases are estimated at US$55 billion, according to a WHO report. Figures for Asia are not readily available.
Omi said chronically sick or disabled children cannot regularly attend school and may not grow up to be productive members of society.
A WHO report cited a source as saying that in the late 1990s, China lost up to a staggering 7.7 percent of its potential economic output because of ill health caused by pollution.
Omi called for a "holistic approach" to restore healthy environment among children covering not just health authorities but also other government departments, such as economic planning, housing, energy, and water as well as community leaders, parents, and teachers.
Omi said the mass media had to weed out advertisements that encourage children to smoke. Of the teenagers in the region who light up, one in three tried their first cigarette before celebrating their 10th birthday, he said.
According to a WHO study, if tobacco use continues at current rates, up to half of young Asians who smoke today will eventually die of the habit.
"So we have to really address the root causes of the problem and deal with the risks rather than the symptoms," Omi said.
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