How Can We Cut The Childhood Death Rate In South Africa?

Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Also Included In: Complementary Medicine / Alternative Medicine
Article Date: 28 Aug 2007 - 15:00 PDT

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In order to cut the childhood death rate in South Africa, research on how to increase the number of children who receive vitamin A supplementation should be the top research priority according to a new study in PLoS Medicine.

Vitamin A supplements have been previously shown to reduce the childhood death rate in parts of the world where malnutrition is widespread, such as South Africa.

In the study, by Mark Tomlinson (Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa) and colleagues, a group of child health experts was asked to rank research priorities in South Africa, where it is estimated that nearly 100,000 children under 5 years of age still die each year.

The second highest priority in this ranking study was research on how to increase hand-washing with soap. In a setting such as South Africa, in which diarrhoea is a leading cause of child death, increasing handwashing in the household reduces the incidence of diarrhoea among children at high risk of death from this disease.

Third in the ranking was research on how best to achieve increased usage of antibiotic treatment for children with pneumonia, and fourth was research on how to ensure that all pregnant HIV-positive women can receive interventions to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV to their child.

"The results of this prioritization exercise," say Dr Tomlinson and colleagues, "suggest that child health research funding in South Africa should concentrate on health policy and systems research options, especially those related to diarrhoea, pneumonia, malnutrition and the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV."

Citation: Tomlinson M, Chopra M, Sanders D, Bradshaw D, Hendricks M, et al. (2007) Setting priorities in child health research investments for South Africa. PLoS Med 4(8): e259.
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- Caption: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

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