UNICEF declared 2014 a devastating year for children on Monday with as many as 15 million caught in conflicts in Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and the Palestinian territories. From Reuters:
UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said the high number of crises meant many of them were quickly forgotten or failed to capture global headlines, such as in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Globally, UNICEF said some 230 million children were living in countries and regions affected by armed conflict.
“Children have been killed while studying in the classroom and while sleeping in their beds; they have been orphaned, kidnapped, tortured, recruited, raped and even sold as slaves,” Lake said in a statement. “Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality.”
Significant threats also emerged to children’s health and well-being like the deadly outbreak of Ebola in the West African countries Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which has left thousands orphaned and some 5 million out of school.
“Violence and trauma do more than harm individual children – they undermine the strength of societies,” Lake said.
In Central African Republic, where tit-for-tat sectarian violence has displaced one-fifth of the population, some 2.3 million children are affected by the conflict with up to 10,000 believed to have been recruited by armed groups during the past year and more than 430 killed or maimed, UNICEF said.
Some 538 children were killed and 3,370 injured in the Palestinian Gaza Strip during a 50-day war between Israeli troops and Hamas militants, it said.
In Syria, UNICEF said more than 7.3 million children have been affected by the civil war, including 1.7 million who fled the country. In neighboring Iraq an estimated 2.7 million children have been affected by conflict, it added, with at least 700 believed to have been maimed or killed this year.
“In both countries, children have been victims of, witnesses to and even perpetrators of increasingly brutal and extreme violence,” UNICEF said.
—————————————-
Global Health and Development Beat
The United Nations launched a $16.4 billion appeal to pay for global humanitarian needs in 2015, saying the number of people affected by conflicts and natural disasters around the world has reached record levels. More than 40 percent of the appeal — $7.2 billion — would go to help 18.2 million people suffering from the war in Syria.
Syrian refugees who had their food aid cut when a U.N. agency ran out of money last week say that without it they will be unable to feed themselves, educate their children or warm their tents in the freezing winter.
Infants in India are born with bacterial infections that are resistant to most known antibiotics, and more than 58,000 died last year as a result, a recent study found.
Junior doctors in Sierra Leone went on strike Monday to demand better treatment for health workers infected with Ebola, a health official said.
As health officials struggle to contain the world’s biggest-ever Ebola outbreak, their efforts are being complicated by another problem: bad data.
In less than a decade, methamphetamine use has skyrocketed in Iran to the point where now about 345,000 Iranians are considered addicts, according to official statistics.
Opium production in Myanmar fell for the first time in nearly a decade in 2014, the United Nations said Monday. The drop was due to lower crop yields, though, as the total area under cultivation was roughly the same as last year.
Heat-trapping pollution released into the atmosphere from rising exports of U.S. gasoline and diesel dwarfs the cuts made from fuel efficiency standards and other efforts to reduce global warming in the United States, according to a new Associated Press investigation.
—————————————-
Spotlight on PSI
Our own Margaret Cohen shared a story from her recent trip to Haiti, in the blog. Here is an excerpt:
In Haiti I met a three-year old girl named Rosberline. Her eyes were bright and curious despite having recently recovered from typhoid. Since her recovery, her mother Maudline had been treating the local river water with harsh bleach — to keep it safe for drinking.
Their town was hit hard during Haiti’s most recent cholera epidemic when hundreds of children like Rosberline suffered and many died because they lacked clean drinking water.
A PSI-trained health worker visited Maudline’s home and told her about a PSI product called Dlo Lavi, a purification tablet that treats water safely and cheaply in just 30 minutes. She gave Maudline tablets and taught her how to use them and where to buy more for only pennies a day.
—————————————-
Buzzing in the Blogs
The Guardian’s health editor, Sarah Boseley, writes a dispatch from her travels in Sierra Leone. An excerpt:
Getting more treatment beds is very important, says Conteh, but to bring the epidemic to a close, “has to be tied in with social mobilisation, getting our people to behave the way the medical experts are asking them to do. That is if somebody is ill in the household, call the emergency number 117 and report it. If somebody dies, don’t touch that corpse. Call 117 so that the burial teams will come. If people adhere to these messages then the figures will just plummet.”
Initially, he says, there was denial that Ebola existed. Now even two-year-olds know.
But how do you change people’s behaviour? From HIV to obesity, it’s one of the hardest things to try to do in public health. When he was appointed to head the response, Conteh said, they called a meeting of religious leaders.
“We sat round the table and said: ‘For centuries, we have been doing this – when grandma dies, you kiss the corpse, you hold her and you wail and all that, but now, we cannot.’ So we asked them to go back to their churches and mosques and tell people that from now, you have to give them a safe medical burial, but dignified.”
Families can get a coffin and a pastor or an imam to say prayers and up to 10 family members can watch from a safe distance. People in the main have accepted it and the authorities report a 95% safe burial rate, but there are those who call 117 to get the teams out – once they have washed the corpse.
And recently the president decided it was time to get tough. For the last four weeks he has been visiting chiefs, local leaders and traditional healers in districts around the country. “He puts it bluntly. If I come again in 21 days and your figures are high, you have to explain why. It means you haven’t engaged your people,” says Conteh.
People realised he meant it when the president sacked his own uncle, who was one of the section chiefs in the Bomboli district.
Heading the UK task force is Donal Brown of the Department for International Development. Like Conteh, he is upbeat about the epidemic. It’s now localised, he says.
—————————————-
Capital Events
Tuesday
11:45 AM – Washington DC Launch of the Global Nutrition Report 2014 – IFPRI
Wednesday
8:30 AM – Ebola and Other Emerging Infectious Disease Threats: Prevention and Preparedness – New America Fdn
2:00 PM – TFGH: Defining the Multi-Sector Landscape Symposium – GHC
4:00 PM – Innovations in Public Health Advocacy: Comparing Experiences in Russia, Ukraine and the US
Thursday
3:00 PM – The Threat of Global Health Emergencies to Food Security – Aspen Institute
Friday
12:00 PM – Myanmar’s Election Year and US Policy – East-West Center
—————————————-
By Mark Leon Goldberg and Tom Murphy
Subscribe to receive the Daily Impact in your inbox each morning!
Have a news or story tip? Email us at [email protected].
Disclaimer: Opinions presented in this email do not necessarily reflect the views of PSI.
