South African children have some of the worst indicators for child health and mortality in the world, says a new report by Cape Town University. The report, entitled “South African Child Gauge for 2009/2010” was released today by the University’s Children’s Institute.
South Africa is one of 12 countries in the world that has not seen its child mortality rate decline at all since the 1990s. Quite the contrary, the number of child deaths have risen from 56 deaths per 1000 live births to 67 deaths per 1000 live births.
While many vertical funding programs targeting a select few particular diseases (malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS) have come to the forefront of international health programming, it is vital that more general health concerns remain a priority. Hospitals still require trained staff, important medical equipment and ample supplied in order to save lives. “For example,” said Malathi Pillai, UNICEF’s deputy chief for South Africa, “a majority of neonatal deaths in South Africa could be averted by improving the quality of care at district hospitals.”
Yet, South Africa puts a great deal of money into its health care system –8.7% of its GDP to be exact. This is higher than many other developing and emerging economies. So, what is the problem?
Well, one problem is certainly the ratio of sick children to the limited amount of financial resources. But largely, hunger continues to be the pre-eminent barrier to child health. Over 60% of the children who died in South African hospitals between 2005 and 2007 were undernourished. Diarrhoeal diseases and HIV/AIDS also continue to stalk the Rainbow Nation’s children.
In 2007, there were 1.4 million AIDS orphans living in South Africa, representing nearly half of all orphans. Given that these children are extraordinarily vulnerable extreme poverty and hunger with no parents or community to care for them (for often they are stigmatized with the HIV-positive status of their deceased parents), South Africa is unlikely to solve the challenges of child mortality without systematically addressing the orphan crisis. This holds true for southern African countries facing similar problems, such as Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
It is not uncommon for children who have lost their mother especially to be handed over to orphanages or other family members by their fathers, who must work and cannot care for them. Of South African’s AIDS orphans, the great majority (802,000) have watched their mothers die.
South Africa has made great strides in addressing the problem and presents an interesting example to other countries. The country is currently rewriting its national laws in order to give AIDS orphans similar rights to adults. The changes will grant them the right to seek low-cost public housing and special government grants. This pragmatic venture will likely help to mitigate the social marginalization of child-headed households and ensure that AIDS orphans are afforded the same basic rights of childhood as their peers.
Child Health and Food Security in Africa
In all of Africa, 40% of the population under 5 years old are malnourished. One dimension of hunger is chronic malnourishment owing to structural barriers such as poverty and climate-related barriers such as flooding and drought; this is reflective of two long-term problems in the food security dimension to child health: access to food and food supply.
Transient barriers food security is the other dimension, and it is caused by natural disasters that either destroy crops or infrastructure (thereby preventing food from being delivered) – known as a secondary emergency to such events as hurricanes, cyclones, tsunamis, etc. The 2007-2008 food crisis is another debatable transient barrier to food, for while prices of staple food grains escalated to record highs, they have come down, but remain above average historical levels.