Kenya: Putting child health first

NAIROBI, 16 June 2009 (IRIN) - As Africa marked the Day of the African Child on 16 June, the Kenyan government launched an eight-year strategy aimed at delivering efficient and effective services to improve the lives of women and children.

"It [the strategy] aims at contributing to the reduction in health inequalities and reversing the downward trend in health-related indicators with a focus on child survival and development," Beth Mugo, the Minister for Public Health and Sanitation, said in Nairobi when she launched the Child Survival and Development Strategy 2008-2015.

"Apart from being a fundamental right, child survival and development is the engine for both present and future national development."

One in every 14 babies born in Kenya will die before their first birthday and about one in nine before their fifth birthday, according to the health ministry.

Kenya has one of the highest numbers of newborn deaths in Africa, with a neo-natal mortality rate of 33 per 1,000 live births - approximately 43,600 deaths every year.

The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey of 2003 indicated that the under-five mortality rate increased significantly between 1988 and 2003, from 96 to 115 per 1,000 live births; while infant mortality rate rose from 62 to 77 per 1,000 live births in the same period.

Mugo said her ministry was committed to its mandate of assuring all Kenyan children of their right to life, survival and development, adding that the strategy was a tool for raising national awareness, understanding and commitment to maternal and child survival and development.

The ministry developed the strategy with other line ministries as well as representatives of civil society, academia, the donor community and general population.

Strategic intervention

Sanjiv Kumar, chief of health at the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF Kenya), said: "It has taken two long years but the end product has been well worth the efforts. We now have a document that describes the key strategies that can help us have an impact in child health."

Kumar said the country now needed to accelerate the implementation of the strategy.

"We are well aware of the simple, key, evidence-based, cost-effective and high impact interventions that can prevent childhood illness and deaths," he said. "These include scaling up ITNs [insecticide treated nets]; breastfeeding and complementary feeding; antenatal care and clean delivery; scaling up oral rehydration therapy and increasing access to water and sanitation."

Kumar said the strategy could help the country achieve the goals of child survival, "provided we scale up the identified interventions by providing adequate resources..."

UNICEF said the right to child survival and development remained unfulfilled for many children in Africa because many countries lacked proper water and sanitation services, food, proper healthcare and quality education and protection systems for children, as well as proper governance to put all these in place.

David Okello, the World Health Organization (WHO) country director for Kenya, said the main challenge was implementation.

"This Child Survival and Development Strategy is long overdue; we have some of the best paediatricians in Kenya; we know what to do, the problem is, how do we implement these strategies? These strategies are the same that have been adopted regionally; we need to implement them nationally and take them to scale," he said.

He said the country was making progress in some of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) but was lagging behind on child and maternal health.

He added that some areas of the country would achieve the goals but others might never do so "unless it [Kenya] addresses the disparities" in health provision.

"Addressing child survival is not only for the health ministries; it is the responsibility of all of us, including other ministries such as that of education and gender; it is the responsibility of all members of society," Okello said.

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