Remember the benches touting the axiom, “See! You just proved bench advertising works”?
Whenever I read one of those pesky bench ads, it irritated me that I couldn’t unread those words and that I had been tricked into falling prey to the advertiser’s “clever” marketing scheme.
Just the other day I had a similar experience as I was sifting through statistics from Unicef. Like the bench, I couldn’t unread the words, and I still can’t stop thinking about them.
21 children under 5 die every MINUTE, mainly from preventable causes
— robhoskins (@robhoskins) May 11, 2013
“About 29,000 children under the age of five – 21 each minute – die every day, mainly from preventable causes.
More than 70% of almost 11 million child deaths every year are attributable to six causes: diarrhea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery, or lack of oxygen at birth.
And the majority are preventable. Some of the deaths occur from illnesses like measles, malaria or tetanus. Others result indirectly from marginalization, conflict and HIV/AIDS. Malnutrition and the lack of safe water and sanitation contribute to half of all these children’s deaths.
Research and experience show that six million of the almost 11 million children who die each year could be saved by low-tech, evidence-based, cost-effective measures such as vaccines, antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation, insecticide-treated bed nets and improved family care and breastfeeding practices.”
Now we’ve both read the bench, and we can’t unsee those numbers or the fact that most child deaths are preventable. So now what do we do? I would love to hear what you’re thinking…comment below and let’s start a conversation that will help us move toward drastically reducing child mortality statistics.