Reduce under-five mortality rate, says Unicef

A health worker gives an oral Polio vaccine to a child in Masaka during a recent Mass immunisation exercise.

Kampala- Uganda will have to reduce the under five mortality rate among its poorer communities by 5 per cent annually to beat the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target on under–five mortality, says a United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) State of the World’s Children 2016 report.

Currently, Uganda’s under–five mortality rate is 80, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2016.
The 2030 Agenda’s Goal Three aims to reduce neonatal mortality to 12 deaths per 1,000 live births and under-five mortality to 25 deaths per 1,000 live births in every country.

The result
Beating the deadline would positively impact on the under–five mortality rate of Uganda’s richer communities, according to Unicef State of the World’s Children 2016 report.

“These targets are achievable, but only if governments keep a relentless focus on the most disadvantaged children. The deepest and earliest cuts in child and maternal mortality must benefit those facing the highest risks,” states the report released Monday.

“Some of the world’s poorest countries have made extraordinary progress. While the world missed the MDG target of a two–thirds reduction in under–five mortality between 1990 and 2015, 24 low–income and lower–middle–income countries achieved it.”

If the rate is not reduced, there will be more under–five mortality rate, which Unicef defines as the probability of one dying between birth and exactly five years of age expressed per 1, 000 births.

Unicef says under–five–mortality is used as the principal indicator of progress in child wellbeing.

The decline
Over the years, Uganda’s under–five mortality rate has fallen from 203 in 1991 to 80 in 2014, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos).

The decline is due to expectant women’s attendance of prenatal sessions and immunisation, among others.

One could, therefore, rightly say that expectant women who live in the poorer communities should regularly seek medical personnel services. And once they give birth, the babies should immediately get jabs for some of the killer childhood diseases such as Tetanus.