Child Health Now, World Vision’s five-year global initiative aimed at reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015, is undertaken for the sake of children like the Kapembwa brothers in Zambia.

December 2009

By Collins Kaumba, World Vision Zambia, and Shawna Templeton, World Vision U.S.

Richard Kapembwa and his twin brother Roderick arrived at the Masamba Clinic, north of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, sick with diarrhea and looking for relief. However, upon their arrival, their mother received sobering news: There was only enough medicine to treat one of the boys.

Richard, just 16 months old, survived. His brother did not.

All too common

“Roderick would have survived like his brother if we had had enough drugs for diarrhea to treat both of them,” explains clinical assistant officer Joseph Bwali. “The boys were highly dehydrated by the time they arrived at the clinic because the diarrhea had hit them badly. Unfortunately, we lost one child because we only had a single drip available.”

A lack of basic supplies such as Oral Rehydration Salts, drips, and antibiotic drugs is all too common in clinics across the developing world, including Zambia. Insufficient stocks of equipment and medication mean that young children like Roderick are unable to fight and recover from a common, treatable illness that no longer kills children in the Western world.

Keeping the commitment

Across the globe, more than 24,000 children under age 5 will die today of preventable causes like malaria, HIV, pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, and complications during pregnancy and after birth.

Proven, simple, and low-cost solutions to these child killers already exist. Yet world leaders lack the will to roll them out across poor countries where they’re most needed, condemning nearly 9 million children a year to die needlessly.

World leaders have made many promises to keep children healthy — promises that have been broken. In 2000, more than 190 world leaders committed to achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The fourth Millennium Development Goal is to cut by two-thirds the number of children under 5 who die. Six million children a year will survive if this commitment is kept. But we are not on track to reach this goal.

Child Health Now

Child Health Now is World Vision’s first global advocacy campaign focused on a single issue: reducing the preventable deaths of children under 5. The five-year initiative aims to help reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 through ensuring that government leaders deliver on their commitments to help meet this goal.

To this end, World Vision will support communities around the world in raising their voices about their right to quality healthcare and press national governments to meet their responsibilities to children, mothers, families, and communities. World Vision will also urge wealthy nations to fulfill their promises to improve conditions in the developing world, and call on the international community to rededicate itself to the Millennium Development Goals.

To correspond with the launch of this campaign, World Vision has published a report, “Child Health Now” (PDF), which examines this silent emergency and outlines steps that wealthy countries must take to significantly curb preventable child deaths. It calls for scaling up simple preventive health measures for mothers and children, particularly at the community level.

“At least 2.5 million children’s lives could be saved each year through low-cost, simple measures such as water and hygiene, bed nets, and basic maternal and newborn care,” says Robert Zachritz, World Vision’s director of advocacy and government relations.

“No new inventions or discoveries are required to save these children’s lives now,” Zachritz continues. “What is needed is an increased commitment by governments and local communities to focus on these low-cost health solutions.

“No mother should ever be in a position where one of her children receives life-saving interventions and one does not.”