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Up to 6,000 children worldwide could die every day from preventable causes in the next six months due to the impact of the coronavirus on routine health services, the UN warned.
Global disruption of essential maternal and child health interventions, such as family planning, delivery and postnatal care, and vaccines, could lead to an additional 1.2 million deaths of children under the age of five in just six months, according to an analysis of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Public School. Health, published in the Lancet Global Health Journal.
This projected figure threatens to reverse nearly a decade of progress in eliminating preventable child deaths, the UN agency for children, UNICEF, said on Wednesday.
“This pandemic is having far-reaching consequences for all of us, but it is undoubtedly the largest and most urgent global crisis that children have faced since the Second World War,” said UNICEF Executive Director UK Sacha Deshmukh
“The lives of children are being turned around the world: their support systems have been torn off, their borders closed, their education lost, their food supply interrupted. Even in the UK, children face the threat of a measles outbreak and school closings are putting vulnerable children at greater risk. “
The research highlights how damaging the coronavirus has been to medical supply chains in countries with weak health systems. Visits to health centers are decreasing due to blockages, curfews and interruptions in transportation, and fear of infection, he says.
The analysis, which looks at three scenarios modeled in low- and middle-income countries, warns that in the most optimistic scenario, where health services are reduced by approximately 15%, there would be a 9.8% increase in deaths of children under the age of five years: an estimated 1,400 per day, and an 8.3% jump in maternal deaths.
In the worst case scenario, where health services are reduced by approximately 45%, there could be a 44.7% increase in deaths of children under the age of five and a 38.6% increase in maternal deaths per month.
“Our estimates are based on tentative assumptions and represent a wide range of results,” write the report’s authors.
“However, they show that if routine medical care is interrupted and access to food is reduced (as a result of unavoidable shocks, the collapse of the health system, or the intentional choices made in response to the pandemic), the rising infant and maternal deaths will be devastating. “
Closed borders have also prevented people from accessing medical care, said UNICEF Representative in Jordan Tanya Chapuisat.
“An estimated 10,000 Syrians [along the Syrian-Jordanian border near Rukban] could not receive any medical services [in Jordan] since the closure began six weeks ago and the border was closed.
“Children don’t get vaccinated, and women who were supposed to have caesarean sections couldn’t.” We have had many sleepless nights, but fortunately no one has died. “
Countries that project the highest number of fatalities in the worst case scenario include Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Uganda.
Unicef has launched its largest appeal to reach those affected by the virus.
