Fatal neglect: How health systems are failing to comprehensively address child mortality
Publisher/Organizer: WaterAid
Publication date: 2009
Language: English
Hard-hitting figures published in the report reveal that the aid system is not responding rationally to disease burden. Despite diarrhoea being the second biggest killer of children, critical interventions to prevent these deaths attract a dismal amount of international aid.
In 2004, diarrhoea killed 1.8 million children, yet between 2004-2006 only $1.5 billion was spent globally on improved sanitation – vital in the fight to protect children from diarrhoea.
In the same period, $10.8 billion was spent on interventions for HIV/AIDS (responsible for 315,000 child deaths), and $3.5 billion on those for malaria (responsible for 840,000 child deaths)
The report stresses that the aid system must continue to tackle diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS but calls for a comparable effort to address diarrhoea.
"Fatal neglect: How health systems are failing to comprehensively address child mortality" argues that to reduce under-five deaths by two-thirds and therefore meet Millennium Development Goal Four, the aid system must target its resources to diseases that are killing the most children – such as diarrhoea – and focus on providing cost-effective interventions such as improved sanitation that can prevent these diseases.