Infectious diseases kill 50000 infants annually

Infectious diseases kill 50,000 infants annually

Published on Friday, 18 July 2014 19:34

The Health Department targets to reduce the death rate among children under five, dying of infectious diseases, to 43 per cent of the current rate next year.

To meet the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal, it also targets to reduce the death cases of children under one to two thirds.

The department stated that about 50,000 children under five died from infectious diseases – dysentery, malaria and pneumonia – per annum.

Of all, dysentery is the most contagious, causing 25 per cent of the deaths. 

Civil society organisations, volunteering at refugee camps in conflict areas, also reported an increasing number of diarrhea incidents due poor hygiene and shortage of clean water.

Challenges to the Health Department's goal are persisting malnutrition and epidemic diseases in rural areas. 

According to Unicef, about 2.5 million infants in Myanmar suffer from hunger and eight per cent of them died of starvation.

Eight per cent of the children under five are critically undernourished, causing Myanmar to rank third place in Asean in terms of malnutrition, after Cambodia and Timor-Leste.

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/infectious-diseases-kill-50000-infants-annually/