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LONDON / NEW YORK, November 11, 2020 – Severe pneumonia leaves an estimated 4.2 million children under the age of five in 124 low- and middle-income countries with critically low oxygen levels each year, a new analysis from UNICEF, Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), Save the Children and Murdoch Children’s. Research Institute (MCRI) has revealed.[i]
Agencies say health care disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic threaten to be a further blow in the battle against the world’s largest infectious killer of children, which already kills more than 800,000 underage children. five years each year. Pneumonia is caused by bacteria, viruses, or fungi, and it leaves children struggling to breathe as their lungs fill with pus and fluid. Severe pneumonia affects more than 22 million young children in low- and middle-income countries each year and kills more people than malaria, measles, and diarrhea combined.
“COVID-19 has infected millions of people and made difficult global conditions for children even worse,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. “As the world grapples with the pandemic and the dire consequences it poses for the most vulnerable, we must not lose sight of the fact that pneumonia continues to claim the lives of more than 2,000 young people every day. Medical oxygen can help save some of these lives. “
Medical oxygen could save the lives of many children with severe pneumonia, along with antibiotics. But in many places, oxygen to treat a child with severe pneumonia for 3-4 days can cost at least £ 30-45.[ii]. For the poorest families, that bill represents a huge barrier to treatment, if the child can get to a functioning oxygen health center and trained health workers, who are often in short supply in poorer countries.
The poorest countries faced a massive lack of oxygen systems and supplies even before the onset of COVID-19. But growing needs due to the pandemic have made these shortages important. The good news is that oxygen can be produced locally at an affordable cost.
Save the Children UK Executive Director Kevin Watkins said: “The pandemic has exposed a devastating oxygen shortage in the poorest countries. Every year, millions of children arrive in health centers in developing countries and need oxygen. In much of Africa, less than one in five receives the treatment they need. Many die of exhaustion: their fragile bodies lack the oxygen they need to recover.
“It does not have to be this way. As the world races to increase oxygen supply, to save lives from both COVID-19 and pneumonia, it must hit the hardest, be free for all, and sustainable. If we focus only on short-term solutions, we run the risk of missing a critical opportunity to save millions of lives for generations to come. “
Dr. Iain Barton, CHAI CEO, said, “Helping countries establish resilient systems to reliably and efficiently deliver oxygen will save lives during this pandemic and treat patients sustainably in the future.”
The Johns Hopkins model has shown that disruption of newborn care, access to antibiotics, and delivery of pneumonia-fighting vaccines mean that a combination of neonatal pneumonia and sepsis could be killing more than 25,000 children each month.[iii] In many countries, separate analysis of routine health information systems data by Save the Children and UNICEF shows that the number of children receiving immunization, diagnosis and treatment has decreased.
Following the onset of the pandemic, worsening shortages and rising oxygen prices have been reported in countries with some of the highest numbers of childhood pneumonia deaths, such as India.[iv], Bangladesh[v] and Nigeria[vi]. According to the World Health Organization, the poorest countries can currently have between five and 20% of the medical oxygen they need, overall[vii].
But the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked global efforts to improve oxygen delivery systems. In just one sign of the scale of efforts to increase supply, WHO and its partners have distributed 30,000 oxygen concentrators to countries around the world. UNICEF alone has delivered more than 15,000 hubs to more than 90 countries.[viii]
In a commentary published in The Lancet on World Pneumonia Day on November 12, global health agencies, including Save the Children and UNICEF, call on governments and donors to leverage the investment and efforts made to respond to the COVID-19 to strengthen health systems that can address childhood pneumonia[ix].
Save the Children, CHAI and UNICEF are calling on donors and governments to:
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Invest in oxygen systems in low- and middle-income countries, including Africa and South Asia, to provide a sustainable supply of oxygen, closer to children in need.
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Maintain and strengthen essential routine health services that are critical to child survival during the COVID-19 outbreak and beyond, with a free-to-use package of basic health services that includes oxygen therapy, including for children.
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Generate better data to monitor the pandemic and its effects on the healthcare system, including coverage of pulse oximetry for diagnosis, oxygen, and recommended first-line antibiotics for childhood pneumonia: amoxicillin in dispersible tablet form and Injectable antibiotics for severe pneumonia.
Across the world, Save the Children, UNICEF and CHAI are expanding programs on the ground and joining forces with partners to provide children with life-saving diagnosis and treatment. For example:
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In Nigeria, Save the Children has partnered with GSK to ensure that all beds in the pediatric ward at Dutse General Hospital in Nigeria have a reliable supply of oxygen. In Ghana and Senegal, UNICEF procured oxygen supplies for the COVID-19 response while developing and expanding efforts to help the government improve access to essential treatment for children with pneumonia. In Sierra Leone, UNICEF supported the installation of three pressure swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen plants across the country and in Bangladesh, UNICEF established a liquid medical oxygen plant for the Special Newborn Care Unit at the Hospital from Cox’s Bazar Sadar district to serve Rohingya refugees.
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In Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, India and Uganda, five countries that account for a third of global deaths from low blood oxygen levels, CHAI has been working since 2016 to increase access to diagnosis and treatment. As finalists in the MacArthur Foundation 100 & Change competition, CHAI and MCRI seek to save tens of thousands of lives each year by sustainably scaling up oxygen therapy and diagnostics in these five high-burden countries. CHAI is also working in partnership with PATH and the Every Breath Counts Coalition (EBC) on a COVID-19 Respiratory Care Response Coordination project to support countries in developing and executing the respiratory care plan to meet the demands of COVID-19.
Media Contacts
Sabrina sidhu
UNICEF New York
Tel: + 1917 476 1537
Email: [email protected]
Dan stewart
Save the Children United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3763 0119
Email: [email protected]
