Burma Has Second Highest Child Mortality Rate in Asia

from The Irrawaddy News Magazine

by Min Lwin and Associated Press

San San Aye, a farmer living some three miles from town, had no idea why her two-year-old son was suffering from chronic diarrhea. She took her child by foot to see the doctor at the government hospital nearest her town, Pale, in Sagaing Division of upper Burma. However, her baby died on the way.

This disturbing story is just one of hundreds of tragedies that happen in Burma every day.

Dr Osamu Kunii, a nutrition expert in Burma with the United Nations Children's Fund, said that between 100,000 to 150,000 children under five years of age die every year in Burma. That’s between 270 and 400 daily—and many are dying from preventable diseases.

Kunii was speaking Wednesday at the launch by UNICEF of its annual report, "The State of the World's Children." The report rated Burma as having the 4th highest child mortality rate in the world, surpassed in Asia only by Afghanistan, which has the third-worst record after Sierra Leone and Angola.

Burma’s unenviable position comes despite the fact that the death rate for young children in Burma had been reduced by 1.6 percent between 1990 and 2006. The under-5 mortality rate is considered a critical indicator for the well-being of children.

According to a child specialist in Monywa Township in Sagaing Division, most infants die from septicemia, diarrhea and tuberculosis. The lack of basic medical supplies and equipment is also a contributing factor for the high death rate, she said.

In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked Burma's overall health care system as the world's second worst after war-ravaged Sierra Leone. Tens of thousands of people in Burma die each year from malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, dysentery, diarrhea and other illnesses.

The most vulnerable areas are, of course, in the rural and remote parts of Burma.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, Dr Thiha Maung from Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand, said: “Some of these diseases are preventable, but the public health system does not reach [rural areas in Burma].”

Poor incomes, malnutrition and a shortage of clean drinking water also affect child mortality rates among the rural poor, added the doctor.

Eighty percent of Burmese people live in rural areas and continue to live in poverty, even lacking proper water supplies. Early rains and flooding increase the risk of malaria and dengue fever in rural areas, including Burma’s borders.

Most of Burma's health care is funded by international sources, with the government spending only about 3 percent on health annually, compared with 40 percent on the military, according to a report published this year by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University.