Tehran, Jan 19, IRNA – More thatn 2000 children die every day as a result of an unintentional, or accidental injury worldwide, United Nations Information Center said in a press release on Sunday.
According to a report issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF,
every year tens of millions more children worldwide are taken to hosptials with injuries that often leave them with lifelong disabilities.
The World Report on Child Injury Prevention provides the first comprehensive global assessment of childhood unintentional injuries and prescribes measures to prevent them. It concludes that if proven prevention measures were adopted everywhere at least 1000 children’s lives could be saved every day.
“Child injuries are an important public health and development issue. In addition to the 830,000 deaths every year, millions of children suffer non-fatal injuries that often require long-term hospitalization and rehabilitation, “ said WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. “The costs of such treatment can throw an entire family into poverty. Children in poorer families and programmes and high quality health services.”
“This report is the result of a collaboration of more than 180 experts from all regions of the world,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman. “It shows that unintentional injuries are the leading cause of childhood death after the age of nine years and that 95 percent of these child injuries occur in developing countries. More must be done to prevent such harm to children.”
Africa has the highest rate overall for unintentional injury deaths. The report find the rate is 10 times higher in Africa than in high-income countries in Europe and the Western Pacific such as Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom, which have the lowest rates of child injury.
However, the report finds that although many high-income countries have been able to reduce their child injury deaths by up to 50 percent over the past 30 years, the issue remains a problem for them, with unintentional injuries accounting for 40 percent of all child deaths in such countries.
The report finds that the top five causes of injury deaths are road crashes, drowning, burns, falls and poisoning.